[Vision2020] Spokane Bomb Linked to Hate Crimes

[Tom Hansen]

Where are the voices that have so often attacked acts of perceived terrorism?

Why are they not echoing similar disdain for this act of domestic terrorism?

Are these voices hoarse from loud and shrill repetitive and continued
contempt expressed against "them".  Or is it that this terrorist is one of
"us"?

Courtesy of today's (January 20, 2011) Spokesman-Review.

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Downtown bomb linked to hate crimes
Police chief praises sergeants for keeping marchers from harm
Thomas Clouse, The Spokesman-Review

The hunt for the person who left the bomb targeting marchers in Monday’s
Martin Luther King Jr. parade will focus on two aspects: forensics and the
region’s violent history with white supremacists.

Frank Harrill, the special agent in charge of the Spokane office of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirmed late Wednesday that two recent
protests by white supremacists in Coeur d’Alene will be part of the effort
to identify those responsible for leaving the bomb on the northeast corner
of Washington Street and Main Avenue.

“We will examine every avenue,” Harrill said. “We are reaching far and
wide in terms of what we are looking at. That certainly will be one of
them.”

Tony Stewart, a member of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human
Relations, said neo-Nazis used signs on Friday to protest two Mexican
restaurants and then about 15 neo-Nazis protested a human rights event on
Monday.

“Then we hear about the bomb in Spokane,” Stewart said. “There would be no
question that since it was planted directly on the path of the Martin
Luther King Jr. march, that it has to be connected to hate crimes. It was
an attempt to injure and kill people because they were out there promoting
the equality of human rights. The evidence is just too overwhelming.”

Harrill said the bomb discovered Monday in a Swiss Army brand backpack was
sent Wednesday to the FBI lab in Quantico, Va. Investigators have not yet
arrested anyone in connection with the bomb, which officials characterize
as a thwarted attempt at domestic terrorism that could have caused
multiple casualties.

Sources who received security briefings on Tuesday described a
sophisticated bomb that could have been detonated remotely. Harrill said
he could not discuss whether investigators believe the person who left the
backpack remained in the area. Investigators continue to seek anyone who
took photographs or video in the area between 8 and 11 a.m. on Monday, he
added.

While Harrill said he hopes to make a quick arrest, he added: “A lot of
this is going to turn, in part, on results of the lab analysis. Even
though we will get an expedited handling of the evidence, it sometimes
takes days to complete,” he said.

Spokane police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said her department’s Central
Intelligence Unit has reported an increase in hate literature and other
white supremacist activity over the past two years, “but nothing in the
two weeks as a precursor to this event.”

Stewart, too, said his organization has tracked a number of troubling
events, even though the efforts don’t seem to be well funded and don’t
have a central meeting point, such as the now-defunct Aryan Nations
compound north of Hayden Lake.

In 2009, someone spread hate literature throughout North Idaho and Spokane
Valley, Stewart said. There was a lull in activity, until the events last
week, he said.

“Now we have this re-emergence. Here we are facing something that is not
to be taken lightly,” Stewart said.

Stewart and others started their efforts to combat hate in 1981 after
Richard Butler founded the Aryan Nations compound in 1973. Stewart said
his organization tracked more than 100 felonies committed by hate groups
in the area in the 1980s and ’90s, including eight murders, several bank
robberies and other crimes intended to intimidate residents.

The crimes attributed to people linked to the Aryan Nations included
several bombings in the mid-1980s, including those at the home of a
Catholic priest, the federal courthouse in Coeur d’Alene and other
locations, Stewart said.

Then in 1996, three bombings linked to racists caused severe damage to a
Planned Parenthood building, Spokane City Hall and the Spokane Valley
office of The Spokesman-Review.

Butler began holding annual marches in downtown Coeur d’Alene in the 1990s
before Morris Dees, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, bankrupted Butler
in a civil trial in 2000. Butler died in 2004 and much of the crime spree
ended with him, Stewart said.

“I know a lot of people were hoping that we were past our most serious
period,” Stewart said. “But it’s not over. It’s time for people to be very
vigilant again.”

Kirkpatrick also keyed on that word, vigilant, as she praised her
employees who quickly identified the potential threat from the bomb.

Although they were first identified as city employees, three workers from
the Spokane Public Facilities District were credited with finding the
backpack and alerting Spokane police. Their boss, Kevin Twohig, would not
identify them.

“I’m very proud of what they did and they will be appropriately
acknowledged by the district,” Twohig said.

Likewise, Kirkpatrick praised Sgts. Jason Hartman and Eric Olsen for their
decisions to inform command staff and reroute the march.

“We are trying to have a national conversation to learn to say, ‘See
something, say something,’ ” she said. “I’d like to get all of our
residents to put that phrase into their thinking. We don’t want to be a
city paralyzed by fear, but we must be a community that is mindful.”

Olsen, who was managing the traffic around the MLK march, said Hartman
called him at 9:37 a.m. Monday and told him about the backpack. Without
enough time to determine what was inside, the sergeants decided to change
the route of the march.

“We always assume the worst,” Olsen said on Wednesday. “But when I found
out it was a viable device, I was both scared and relieved. I was scared
that someone would do that but relieved that it was resolved. I felt very
fortunate 
 just from the chaos and devastation it would have caused.”

Spokane County Commissioner Al French commented on the near miss for the
Spokane community.

“It is appalling to think that a celebration to commemorate the life and
work of Dr. King could have ended so tragically,” French said Wednesday in
a news release. “We cannot allow such acts to go unanswered or
unpunished.”

Commissioner Mark Richard spoke at the King event and only learned later
of the potential threat to the hundreds of people – including children –
in the parade.

“If nothing else, this kind of violence shows us that we must continue Dr.
King’s work for justice and peace,” he said.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown