Introduction Movements Eras Organizations Index Contributions
About Organizations
Black Panther Party Black Liberation Army American Indian Movement FALN Weather Underground Earth Liberation Front Animal Liberation Front MOVE Republic of New Afrika Symbionese Liberation Army Los Macheteros United Freedom Front May 19th Communist Organization Young Lords George Jackson Brigade Students for a Democratic Society Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Industrial Workers of the World Communist Party USA Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Brown Berets Socialist Workers Party African People's Socialist Party Nation of Islam
About Earth Liberation Front
Origins: from Earth First! to the ELF (1992–1997) The Vail Arson (1998) The Campaign at Its Peak — and the Luers Case (1999–2003) Operation Backfire (2005–2007) The Green Scare Sentences: McGowan, Paul & the Enhancement (2006–2013) Entrapment & the Longest Sentence: Eric McDavid & Marius Mason (2006– )
THE CAMPAIGN AT ITS PEAK — AND THE LUERS CASE (1999–2003)
The Campaign at Its Peak — and the Luers Case (1999–2003)

Between 1999 and 2003, ELF cells burned timber-company headquarters, wild-horse facilities, a University of Washington horticulture center, SUV dealerships, and sprawl developments from Oregon to Long Island — by the FBI's count, hundreds of actions and tens of millions in damage, without a single death or injury, as "The Family," the Northwest network around Rodgers, carried out the most sophisticated of the arsons.

The era's sentencing signal came early: Jeff "Free" Luers, a 22-year-old Eugene forest defender who torched three SUVs at a dealership in 2000, was sentenced in 2001 to 22 years and 8 months — more than many killers — explicitly to make an example. An appeals court cut the term in 2007 and Luers was freed in 2009, but the sentence announced the state's intention for everyone who followed.