So here, in the person of one Harrison D. Burrows, 18, who acted in behalf of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) or the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), we have yet another useful idiot confessing his Eco-terror sins:
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)--A teenager on Tuesday admitted setting fire to a farm building at Brigham Young University and said he acted in support of a radical animal-rights group.
Harrison D. Burrows pleaded guilty to a federal charge of destruction of property by fire, admitting he entered Ellsworth Farm, poured gasoline under a storage shed and ignited it. He said he was making ``a political statement on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front.''
Burrows, 18, also agreed to testify about any other illegal acts he knows about taken on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front or its sister organization, the Earth Liberation Front.
The July 8 fire caused about $30,000 damage at the farm, which houses animals used for feed experiments. No animals were harmed.
Burrows could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced Jan. 10. But in exchange for his plea, the government said it would recommend he serve only five years.
The government earlier dropped a count of use of a destructive device, a charge that carries a 30-year sentence.
Burrows also took responsibility for other vandalism at the university, including freeing caged rabbits and birds from a campus farm. He has not been charged in those incidents.
The farm fire occurred three weeks after the Earth Liberation Front took responsibility for a $1.5 million arson fire at a lumberyard in suburban Salt Lake City.
What moves this story safely into the Land of the Bizarre is this:
The MHA, the university recycling center, recycles tons of metal, paper and compost each year, saving BYU $200,000 each year.
Construction is scheduled to begin later this fall to repair a damaged section of a storage shed that was burned when Provo resident, Harrison David Burrows, broke into Brigham Young University's animal science farm over the summer.
Burrows confessed Tuesday to setting fire to a large amount of cardboard, causing an estimated $30,000 in damage. However, what he burned was not part of the animal science farm, but belonged to BYU's Material Handling Area.
The MHA is BYU's recycling center, which is located in the same compound as the farm and recycles an average of 30 tons of cardboard a month.
Bill Rudy, a recycling trainer at the MHA, said most other universities contract this type of work out, but not BYU.
"We do it faster, cheaper and better," Rudy said.
The MHA employs six part-time students who assist Rudy in recycling metals and plastics and making BYU's very own topsoil.
[. . . ]
"What grows on campus is composted and goes back to campus," he said.
Rudy said they receive large amounts of materials when a set from a play or an art exhibit is taken down. Rudy said they also get scraps from the carpentry shop.
BYU's street cleaning trucks even dump debris here after they've finished sweeping campus drive and other BYU-owned street sections.
[ . . . ]
Besides producing it's own soil, the MHA collects other recyclables from all over campus.
Rudy said they collect computer parts, bicycles that didn't sell at auction, broken dryers and ironing boards from the dormitories and even mangled phone booths that have been replaced.
This summer, the MHA received three major donations of recyclable materials when LaVell Edwards Stadium, the endowment rooms in the Provo Temple and several theaters in the HFAC all had new seats installed.
All of the metal parts from the seats resulted in 10 tons of aluminum and 54 tons of iron, a total of 64 tons of metal. A local garbage dump charges $27 per ton to dispose of scrap metal, but instead of dumping it, BYU sold it for more than $9,000.
In 2003, the MHA recycled 311 tons of metal, 1,300 tons of paper and 7,800 tons of compost. You do the math.
"We save the university well over $200,000 every year," Rudy said.
So here we have someone so concerned about environmental and animal matters that he and an alleged co-conspirator (Joshua Demmitt, who evidently torched a couple of tractors) take it upon themselves to make a political statement by torching a recycling center whose very purpose is to help protect the environment! In the name of ALF and ELF, no less.
Actually, what I really think is going on here is that Messrs. Burrows and Demmitt are a couple of kids who used the ALF and ELF agenda as an excuse to do something that, at the time, sounded like a fun and naughty thing to do - an impulse that they might not have indulged had they resisted the temptation to rationalize destructive behavior based upon ALF and ELF propaganda.
Mr. Barrows is clearly no ideologue, and perhaps he will find time while in the slammer - where he appears headed - to reflect upon the shallowness of his thoughts, and the cost of acting them out.
In any event, Mr. Burrows may well be the poster boy of useful idiots. He is exactly the kind of thoughtless, expendable pawn ALF, ELF, SHAC and other like groups depend on.
UPDATE: Title changed 10/13/04
Brian