**WARNING: This episode contains discussions about domestic violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion advised.

While Judi Bari, Darryl Cherney and their supporters positioned the bombing of Judi’s car as political violence, others came to believe that a more likely suspect was her ex-husband, Mike Sweeney. While no physical evidence ties Sweeney to the crime, his background, including an alleged arson attack on a small airport near his home in 1980. And then there was the allegation of domestic abuse. But did he have the opportunity to place the bomb in her car?

**WARNING: This episode contains discussions about domestic violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion advised.
While Judi Bari, Darryl Cherney and their supporters positioned the bombing of Judi&rsquo;s car as political violence, others came to believe that a more likely suspect was her ex-husband, Mike Sweeney. While no physical evidence ties Sweeney to the crime, his background, including an alleged arson attack on a small airport near his home in 1980. And then there was the allegation of domestic abuse. But did he have the opportunity to place the bomb in her car?

On the morning of May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb exploded in the car driven by Judi Bari, a leader in the radical environmental group, Earth First!. She was critically injured, but she survived. The case of who placed the bomb has never been solved. In fact, law enforcement barely investigated. 

The bombing happened in the midst of a battle over the fate of the last remnants of the original Redwood forest in northernmost California. As timber companies looked to cut the remaining trees, Earth First! activists used whatever non-violent means they could to stop them. In a region reliant on timber for well over a century, threats and violence followed. 

This season on Rip Current, the story of a woman who led a group of people willing to put their lives on the line to stop irreversible environmental damage, and the price that she paid.

On the morning of May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb exploded in the car driven by Judi Bari, a leader in the radical environmental group, Earth First!. She was critically injured, but she survived. The case of who placed the bomb has never been solved. In fact, law enforcement barely investigated.&nbsp; The bombing happened in the midst of a battle over the fate of the last remnants of the original Redwood forest in northernmost California. As timber companies looked to cut the remaining trees, Earth First! activists used whatever non-violent means they could to stop them. In a region reliant on timber for well over a century, threats and violence followed.&nbsp; This season on Rip Current, the story of a woman who led a group of people willing to put their lives on the line to stop irreversible environmental damage, and the price that she paid.

Rip Current

S2 E10: The Usual Suspect

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/99b74dd6-392e-41ca-a633-b3cb00159a92/transcript