Pasco, Wash.-The head of the Tri-Cities bomb squad declined to confirm that a man now in police custody threatened to use a fertilizer bomb May 21 on a group of people in a home here. The suspect has been charged with felony harassment and is in Franklin County jail on $50,000 bail. Press reports say the suspect, who is apparently involved in a domestic dispute, entered the home, where there were at least seven occupants, and after setting down the bomb warned if anyone touched it they would blow up. Bomb squad members responding for Pasco police confirmed that the device was filled with a chemical compound intended to produce an explosion. The makeup later was tentatively identified as fertilizer placed inside a fuel oil canister with a container of unknown liquid; rifle bullets, nails, and tacks were attached to the outside. Another domestic dispute May 30 in Covington in the Seattle area ended with a sheriff’s deputy shooting and killing a man who threatened to set off a 250-pound fertilizer bomb. After the standoff authorities found a semi-automatic pistol with ammunition and a scoped rifle, but no explosives.
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