Sharon Rogers Tells of Her Terror, Danger Facing U.S.

Speaking slowly and thoughtfully, Sharon Rogers described the horror of barely escaping from her exploding van, of the unfolding drama that has forever changed her life and cost her her teaching job, and of the danger of America turning up its hands at international terrorism.

She spoke of hearing an explosion around her vehicle, of smelling smoke, and of working quickly to unbuckle her seat belt and get out of the burning van.

“We don’t know who did it,” Rogers said in an interview with the San Diego Crime Stoppers program, which recorded her reflections for a television reenactment of the van bombing that was produced in the hope of obtaining information leading to an arrest. It was her first public interview since the bombing incident March 10.

“We just must realize that someone is out there who committed a very cowardly act,” she said. “And together as a community we have to find out who it is so that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

“It could be me last week, it could be you tomorrow.”

Target of Terrorists?

Since the incident, the wife of Navy Capt. Will Rogers III has been catapulted from a suburban school teacher to the target of what law enforcement agencies believe may have been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil--an assault that began when a bomb underneath her van was detonated at a crowded La Jolla intersection.

Officials have found small fragments of a pipe bomb that they theorize was planted by a terrorist in retaliation for her husband’s decision aboard the Vincennes to shoot down, mistakenly, an Iranian civilian airliner over the Persian Gulf last summer, killing all 290 people aboard.

Since the explosion and fire ripped apart her white 1984 Toyota van, Sharon Rogers and her husband have remained in protective custody. Their only public comments about the incident have come in the form of two letters released as the La Jolla Country Day School was firing her from her fourth-grade teaching job. The letters criticized the school for firing Mrs. Rogers. “The image of a burning van must not become a symbol of fear and unreasoned reaction,” one of the letters said.

Sharon Rogers said in the interview that because of the bombing, “my life has completely done a turn-around. . . . My life has been threatened. That of my family has been threatened. I have lost my job. I can’t go back to my home.”

Also for the first time, she described in graphic, second-by-second detail the bombing itself.

“I was coming from my home,” she said. “I was on my way to work. I had been gone maybe three or four minutes. I came to a red light on Genesee Avenue. I stopped. There were three or four cars in front of me. I thought there were several cars backed up behind me.

‘I Smelled Burning’

“I’d been sitting at the red light for maybe 20 or 30 seconds when I felt that I had been rear-ended from the back by a car going very fast. At the same time I heard an explosion. I opened up the door. I smelled burning. I got my seat belt off as quickly as I could.

“I jumped out, ran around the back end of the van, where I saw the back third of the van on fire and I ran to the curb, where a construction worker took me by the arm. His first question to me was, ‘Is anyone else in the van?’ And I said ‘no.’ He questioned me again and I said ‘no.’

“He then put me up into the cab of (his) van, where I think he gave me a jacket to put around me and I saw that he had a cellular phone and it’s then when I asked him to call my husband, and he did.

“And I sat there and watched my van burn.”

Head Is ‘Masked’

The interview was recorded last Tuesday at police headquarters, where Mrs. Rogers was surrounded by police, FBI agents and officials from the Naval Investigative Service. Her head was “masked” during the taped segment, which makes it difficult to make out her facial features.

Sgt. Dorothy Powell, a San Diego police spokeswoman, said the 60-second spot, which includes the interview and a reenactment of the van explosion, will be shown as a public service announcement on television stations for a week beginning Monday.

The film also reminds viewers that a total of $37,000 in reward money has been posted, and it encourages anyone with information about the explosion to call the 235-TIPS hot line.

Program Highlights Crimes

Powell said the Crime Stoppers project, which normally highlights different local crimes each week, asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation if Sharon Rogers would be willing to discuss the bombing for their program. “Then the FBI asked her if she would do it, and she said ‘yes,’ ” Powell said.

And the sergeant added that the Rogers segment is probably the most sensational case the program has taken on in its 5-year history.

“At least for our Crime Stoppers, it’s certainly the one with the most national impact,” she said. “Maybe even international impact, for that matter.”