Oregon bank bombing kills officers

frustrated depositor?
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/bomb_explodes_outside_bank_in.html#2161785
Bomb explodes at Woodburn bank, killing a police officer and OSP bomb technician

by Helen Jung, The Oregonian Saturday December 13, 2008, 7:19 AM


Motoya Nakamura/The OregonianPolice use a robot to check the area near West Coast bank in Woodburn Friday night, where a bomb exploded killing a Woodburn police officer.
WOODBURN -- A bomb exploded Friday at a West Coast Bank branch in Woodburn, killing a Woodburn police officer and an Oregon State Police bomb squad technician, and critically injuring the Woodburn police chief.
The bomb detonated around 5:30 p.m. at the bank in the 2500 block of Oregon 214.
Oregon State Police authorities this morning confirmed the death of its bomb technician. Authorities have not released the names of the officers.
Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell received critical injuries and was taken to OHSU Hospital, according to OSP Lt. Gregg Hastings. A hospital representative said Russell is in an intensive care unit this morning.
A bank employee suffered non-life threatening injuries. The other identities were not released.
Marion County deputy medical examiner Rodge Womack said police were concerned there might be a second bomb in the area; police dogs and a robot were combing the area late into the night.
An undetermined number of people living within a block of the bank were evacuated from their homes Friday, and a quarter-mile area around the crime scene was cordoned off.
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The bank had been evacuated before the bomb detonated, according to West Coast Bank Chief Executive Robert Sznewajs. The branch has been there for at least 10 years, he said.
The blast came several hours after someone made a threatening phone call to Wells Fargo around 10:30 a.m. Oregon State Police, the FBI and Woodburn police responded to the call.
Police did not provide much detail about what transpired between then and 5:30 p.m., when the bomb went off at West Coast Bank.
But according to Sznewajs, two bomb threats came into the two banks, which sit side by side on Oregon 214. Police responded to both, but it was an employee who found a suspicious device under the bushes outside West Coast bank.
Sznewajs told The Statesman Journal that his bank for a call "from an unknown person saying that we should look for one as well. We called authorities, but they looked and found nothing."

Sznewajs said that "one of our people saw a device in the bushes around the branch and called authorities. We looked at it and evacuated the branch and sent people away." He said authorities decided to move the device inside the branch and apparently scanned it -- and then it went off.
Sznewajs said he did not know whether the bomb went off on its own or as a result of the technicians' investigation.
​

After the blast, officers closed down a large swath of the commercial strip, populated by gas stations, fast food shops and strip malls. Marion County Sheriff Russ Isham said the area will remain closed through the weekend, adding that he did not know if there could be additional bombs.
Police ask anyone with information to call the ATF at 800-800-3855.
Investigators for the FBI and the ATF were dispatched to the scene. Police said early today that a multi-agency investigation involving federal, state, county and city police agencies has begun to identify suspects.
The blast shook up area residents.
Bob Currie, 66, a resident of Panor Senior Condominiums which overlooks the Wells Fargo branch, said that in the morning he saw a police car blocking the drive-up teller window and an FBI bomb technician checking a garbage can in the parking lot. He said the Wells Fargo evacuated at 1:30 p.m. and he saw people leaving the bank from his balcony.
Later in the afternoon, "I went back to my computer and all of a sudden heard this loud ka-boom."
T.J. Simons, 17, who works at the 76 station on Oregon 214 about 500 feet from the bank, also heard the blast. "At first -more-

 

Yup, two officers confirmed dead, one in serious condition and one bank employee was injured. Not really much else yet has been reported other than repetitiveness of the same stuff, when does the media do that. The road in front of the 2 banks I guess will be closed for at least the weekend. Not sure why they are closing it for over a 2 mile stretch from I-5 to Hwy. 99 or something like that, considering all the other streets and houses that are in the proximity that are not closed.

 

I was very surprised as well that they moved the bomb into the building. What was the officer thinking? If it was to be moved anywhere, a disposal unit would have been the only place, in my opinion. Otherwise, sandbag it and detonate if no other means of disarmament was possible. Some questions may never be answered. I feel sorry that this mistake cost him his life.

 

One of the very first things you learn in UXB, EOD, Land mines, and Booby Traps, and so on....
Don't touch it, and don't move it......ever.
I know, it was what I did in the Military in RVN.
I have yet to figure out the human element that makes us do what we know is wrong.....
I was in a group that went to varied schools in Murnau, Germany, (GMBH @ the time), for this stuff, and I am the only one of 40 to return.
As my Instructor Sgt. Meese often said: "Gentlemen, you make 1 mistake, and you'll know it, from the bright light and loud ringing in the ears".
I was lucky.

 

"cut the green wire or the blue wire?" I always get a kick out of seeing that in the movies,like there'ssome kind of a standard color code for improvised explosives.