Kevin Harpham Arrested in Spokane MLK Parade Bombing Attempt

Kevin William Harpam Arrested for Attempted MLK Day Parade Bomb Attempt: Suspect Has White Supremacist Ties

The FBI has arrested one man and is investigating several others in connection with a bomb placed along the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade route in Spokane, Washington. According to an anonymous source who spoke with the Seattle Times, the suspect had ties to a white supremacist group. The suspect has been identified as Kevin William Harpham, a known white supremacist with ties to the National Alliance (a high-profile white power group).

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Washington Bomb Attempt Radically-Motivated?

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Kevin Harpham was charged with was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and knowingly possessing an improvised explosive device. Kevin Harpham was in the US Army from 1996-1997, and was stationed at Fort Lewis, between Tacoma and Olympia.

The bomb had been placed in a backpack on a park bench along the parade route, where it was spotted by a city employee and defused by law enforcement officers. The placement and timing of the bomb pointed squarely towards a hate crime, and domestic terrorism.

• Spokane Bomb Attempt: Domestic Terrorism?

One of the two t-shirts which wrapped the bomb was traced to a local event in Colville, Washington, where the suspect's house was surrounded. Colville was once home to Aryan Nations, a white-power group, and the homogenous nature of that part of the state (and the nearby northern tip of Idaho) has been attractive to white supremacists and -separatists.