Originally published by Broward-Palm Beach New Times 2006-06-22
©2006 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.
Anna the Medic
Have Wire, Will Travel
Listen, my children, to the story of Anna the Medic, who travels the land,
bringing the harsh scrutiny of federal law enforcement to Americans engaged
in political protest.
In the past two years, Anna, whose real name may be Anna Davies or Anna
Davidson, has turned up at rallies and marches from South Florida to
Northern California, with a lot of stops in between. She has demonstrated
for animal rights and protested the Iraq War, all the while meticulously
gathering information on political dissidents for the FBI. According to FBI
affidavits, Anna has been a paid informant in 12 investigations of
"anarchist" groups. She's a veritable Scarlet Pimpernel, on the federal
government tab.
As a confidential informant, Anna is topnotch. She has a way of inveigling
herself into meetings and revving up the emotions of young dissidents,
protest group leaders say.
For example, days before planned protests in June 2005 at the Broward
Convention Center, where the Organization of American States held its
annual meeting, Anna showed up out of the blue in crisp black scrubs and a
kit bag with a red cross on it, says Ray Del Papa, a member of the protest
planning committee.
Del Papa says his suspicions were immediately aroused. "I had just had a
phone conversation with the defense headquarters set up in Fort Lauderdale
to handle arrest situations," he says. "I told them we needed medics. The
next day, Anna shows up, dressed as a medic. I knew our phones were tapped,
so I thought she might be an infiltrator."
Anna, in her mid-20s, seemed more interested in the planning for the
protest than in medical contingencies. She asked a lot of questions and
seemed to have prior knowledge of all the preliminary planning sessions,
Del Papa says. "She'd come up and ask me, 'What happened at the legal
observer training session?'" Del Papa says. "I'd say, 'How did you know
about that?' And she'd say, 'Well, I heard you were there. '"
During the protest on June 6, Anna was called upon to use her supposed
medical skills. She was summoned to help an elderly woman who was
apparently suffering from heat exhaustion. She gave the woman, Barbara
Collins, a drink of Gatorade. After her symptoms persisted, though, Anna
declined to return to assist the woman again, says Collins' friend Linda
Belgrave, a University of Miami sociology professor.
"She told us to walk over to where some air-conditioned buses were,"
Belgrave says. "Anna was too busy hanging out to help. Eventually,
[Barbara] collapsed by the side of the road, and the cops called an ambulance."
Things went smoothly at the protest until a small group of teenagers
decided to stage a sitdown in front of a squad of police officers in riot
gear. Here's where Anna showed her true calling. Del Papa and others say
the teenagers had been orchestrated by the charismatic Anna. The setting
was at a bottleneck in the march to the convention center, and cops seemed
to be preparing to step in. "I said, 'This is a trap,'" Del Papa recounts.
Other protest leaders eventually interceded, persuading the teenagers to
move along before the cops moved in.
Anna showed up later that month at the so-called Bio-Democracy protests in
Philadelphia, at which demonstrators protested experiments on animals. Some
15 demonstrators were arrested during street protests at and around the
Philadelphia Convention Center, where biotech companies were meeting. Anna
posted an "article" about the protest on an independent media website. "How
empowering!" she crowed, recounting how she had chanted "Puppy killers, GO
HOME!" She made subsequent appearances at protests and meetings in Boston,
Pittsburgh, and Asheville, North Carolina.
But Anna's big coup was in Northern California, where she became the prime
prosecution witness in federal conspiracy charges against three alleged
"eco-terrorists." The three plotted to blow up a dam, a genetics lab, a
U.S. Forestry Service facility, and cellular telephone towers, federal
authorities say. Anna was there, recording the whole plot with a body wire.
However, according to attorney Mark Reichel, who represents one of the
defendants, Eric McDavid, it was actually Anna who recruited the three
during the Philadelphia protest. McDavid, Zachary Jenson, and Lauren Weiner
traveled with Anna to Auburn, California, where Anna rented a cabin and
assisted in preparations for manufacturing bombs and scoping out targets.
Reichel says Anna promoted the plot and bought the supplies (including
"canning jars, coffee filters, a mixing bowl, a hot plate, petroleum jelly,
a gasoline can, bleach, an extension cord, and battery testers," as a court
document recorded it) that were purchased to make bombs.
The three alleged conspirators, supposedly members of an Eco-Liberation
Front (ELF) cell, were arrested in January; Weiner has agreed to testify
against the other two.
South Florida lawyer/activist Jennifer Van Bergen began to connect the dots
in Anna's headlong career as an informant in a June 8 article for Raw
Story, a progressive online newsgathering organization. The truth about
Anna's involvement with the ELF plot was by then beginning to surface in
court hearings. An FBI agent revealed that Anna referred to in court as
"the source" was paid $75,000 and expenses over the past two years to
serve as an FBI confidential informant. He also conceded that Anna had
rented the cabin and purchased at least some of the bomb-making supplies.
Attempts to reach Anna at her e-mail address ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) got
no response. Judy Orhuela, spokeswoman for the FBI Miami office, said the
agency wouldn't comment on confidential informants.
Tailpipe remembers stories from the dark, Nixonian 1960s and '70s about
undercover operatives who used insidious tactics to ratchet up the
violence, then showed up in court as paid informants. ("When somebody in a
crowd shouts 'Let's get some guns,' you know he's a paid informant,"
activists used to say.) But hasn't that kind of questionable law
enforcement activity been attacked in federal court?
In the Bush era, all civil-rights bets are off. The 'Pipe asked the
world-bitten Reichel about the possible fallout should Anna be shown to
have been a provocateur rather than an impartial observer. "Please," he
said. "They'll give her the Medal of Honor."
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