Bombings Leave Idaho Townspeople Angry and Afraid

Like so many others here, she is angry and afraid, but she is also certain about what she would like to see happen to whoever shook this community with three bombs that exploded Monday.

“I hope they catch them,” said the middle-aged woman, who refused, out of fear, to give her name. “I hope they just shoot them. Don’t waste money on a trial or prison for what they’ve done. Don’t even give ‘em a glass of water.”

Crews sifted through debris Tuesday at the sites of the three Monday morning bombings, looking for clues, and authorities shipped a fourth bomb that did not explode to California for study.

In recent months, increasing national attention has been focused on this Idaho panhandle community because militant white supremacist groups have settled in the area. But federal investigators and local police said they have neither clues nor evidence linking the three bombings or the undetonated bomb to any such group.

A spokesman for the anti-Semitic Church of Jesus Christ Christian Aryan Nation in the Hayden Lake area north of the town denied that the group was involved. The spokesman blamed “the Jews” for the bombings.

Not Pipe Bombs

Police disclosed that the four explosive devices used Monday were not pipe bombs. A pipe bomb was used in the Sept. 15 bombing of the home of a Catholic priest who in July had founded a local human rights movement to counter the neo-Nazi message of the Aryan Nation church.

A pipe bomb was also mailed recently to a federal judge in Fargo, N.D., who was involved in trials of members of Posse Comitatus, a right-wing group that opposes governmental authority above the county level.

“We believe all four devices (Monday) were similar,” said Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Frank Premo, “but they do not match the device used at Rev. Bill Wassmuth’s house. And, obviously, the federal building could be a target for almost anything.”

The federal building was the first to be targeted Monday, when a bomb exploded in bushes by the main entrance. In the next 17 minutes, two more bombs went off at a retail building and in a restaurant parking lot, and Premo said all were close enough to be the work of one person. The unexploded bomb was found on the roof of an armed forces recruiting center. Authorities refused to say what kinds of bombs they were or whether timing devices were used.

No Injuries Reported

No one was injured and damage was minor.

“The explosive devices are not similar to explosive devices that have gone off in this area before, and they (Aryan Nation church) are not a suspect at this time,” Premo said.

The bombings--whatever their origin--have angered many in this timber-and-tourist community of 20,000 people 30 miles east of Spokane, Wash.

“Nobody’s ever bombed us,” said James M. Yount III, a 20-year-old restaurant cook who was born here. “This town has never been like this, no bombs, no nothin’.”

Mayor Raymond L. Stone described the community mood Tuesday as “mostly uneasiness, some frustration.” He added: “They’re impatient to find out who’s done it.”

“There’s also a sense of resolve, that we can overcome this and be a better community,” said City Administrator Dana Wetzel.