This is News 23, NBC, Live at 9.
A series of FBI raids puts a number of Washington residents in jail.
Raids FBI officials say were motivated because of plans to use illegal explosives.
Good evening, I'm Dave Em.
And I'm Kate Callahan. Thanks for joining us tonight, Live at 9.
Well, a series of federal raids over the weekend has resulted in 16 arrests,
including the leader of the Washington State Militia.
The raids were conducted in Seattle, Tukwila, and Bellingham.
Eight of the suspects are facing weapons and explosive charges.
Chris Ingalls was in Bellingham today for a special FBI news conference.
Authorities displayed some of the $48,000 in stolen goods they seized during weekend raids.
Guns, a computer, and radio equipment.
This weekend's raids also included 16 arrests.
Former Washington State Militia leader John Pitner and seven others were arrested for making and possessing explosives.
Five of the individuals arrested were arrested here in Bellingham on Saturday
while they were participating in a class and teaching each other how to build explosive devices.
Authorities declined to identify what kind of explosive materials they've seized
or speculate on the suspect's plans for the bombs.
Pitner's wife says her husband leads a nonviolent militia and he's innocent.
He's trying to reach out to people that haven't voted in years to vote people into office
to help make these changes that the country, he feels the country's needed.
It's never been violent. It's always been more educational.
Know your constitution. Know your Bill of Rights.
FBI agents don't believe that any of those arrested had anything to do with the Olympic Park bombing.
Well, understandably, all of these incidents have people very concerned.
After the bombing at the Olympics and the tragedy of flight TWA 800,
America is on edge and airline employees are being extra cautious.
So when a ticket agent in Seattle noticed a strange package at the SeaTac airport,
she became very suspicious.
Jeff Gradney reports.
Darlene Olson and her husband spotted something they thought looked suspicious in this SeaTac airport concourse.
There was just a box there kind of in a cellophane bag that you could see through, looked like it had was taped.
They came back through the concourse a few minutes later and noticed the package was still there.
They told airline staff and they contacted Port of Seattle police.
Police evacuated the concourse and closed it.
They ended up blasting the package to pieces with a high pressure water cannon to disable any explosives that may be inside.
It turned out to be a CD player.
Or what's left of it.
Passengers like Tony Kendall say they were more irritated than scared by all this.
It's pretty disgusting that we have to worry about stuff like this.
You'd think from all the news media, you know, people would learn not to leave packages around.
Transportation authorities say there's a lesson in all this.
And you'll hear it from everybody from the travel agent to the people who check you in at the ticket counter
to keep your packages with you and not leave them stranded in the airport.
They will invite attention by airport security.
Jeff Gradney for NBC News.
In the past month, terrorist actions have hit a little too close to home for millions of Americans.
Recovery experts have now found a total of 161 bodies from TWA Flight 800 and have identified 155.
The process of identification can be a long one and often depends on past medical and dental records.
As large pieces of the airplane are brought to the surface, workers at the medical examiner's office
talk about the process and the experience of working with these victims.
Medical examiners say they've been looking at body after body for 12 days and the process is an extremely grim one.
Well, I don't think we're worried about radiation.
The thing that I found that's the most helpful is that there were a few cases where the other people thought they knew who it was.
And then I compared the X-rays and I said, it can't be the person you think it is.
And I prevented them from making a misidentification, which would be another tragedy on top of a tragedy.
FBI officials say the bodies of victims seated near the front of the plane sustained more damage than those in other parts of the aircraft.
This supports officials' theory that a bomb in the forward cargo hold blew the plane apart.
Well, in Atlanta, the hunt for the Olympic bomber continues tonight.
Investigators share more details today on the person they believe responsible for killing two and injuring more than a hundred others.
Mark Strassman has the latest now from Atlanta.
It's Atlanta's most visible scar of the pipe bombing, the battered base of this audio tower in Centennial Park that workers were patching this morning.
This park reopens tomorrow.
The psyche of these games is also healing.
I'm not going to let one idiot ruin this.
I think pretty much everyone feels the same way.
Investigators believe thousands of parkgoers may have seen the pipe bomber, the mystery caller.
Investigators say an American white man who dialed 911 minutes before the explosion with this message.
Quote, there is a bomb in Centennial Park.
You have 30 minutes.
End of quote.
Home videos, security videos, snapshots and hundreds of leads now nearly overwhelm investigators.
Helpful evidence, fragments recovered from the pipe bomb.
Its design, size and materials all suggest a domestic act of terrorism, not a foreign one.
There's so many telltale signs and so much evidence that the person will be apprehended fairly soon.
Olympic organizers say Centennial Park will reopen better than ever.
But much heavier policing here will be just another reminder that this is a changed place and a changed Olympiad.
Mark Strassman, NBC News, Atlanta.
Olympic crowds will return to Centennial Park tomorrow for the first time since that bomb.
A little closer to home tonight, 36-year-old Ann Kirkpatrick is the new police chief of Ellensburg.
Originally David Mosley accepted the job but turned down the job last week.
City manager David Mosley says he withdrew for personal reasons.
Mosley says both were excellent candidates and says he's thrilled about Kirkpatrick coming to Ellensburg.
Many of the officers know her and have received training from her.
She's a 14-year veteran of law enforcement.
Kirkpatrick served in Memphis, Tennessee and in Redmond, Washington.
She'll begin her new job on September 16th.
A Yakima Superior Court judge has ruled that the case of a Union Gap Tavern owner throwing out three Hispanic men for speaking Spanish will go to trial.
Attorneys for both sides received the judge's decision today by mail.
Trial is set for January 6th, 1997.
Back in November of last year, the bar owner kicked out three Hispanic men after they were speaking Spanish and were allegedly getting out of control.
A five-year-old Yakima boy who was hit by a van on Saturday has died.
Luis Martinez, who you see here on the left, died yesterday at Harborview Medical Center of serious head injuries.
A few weeks back we did a story on Luis and his dance group that was to perform on the 4th of July.
Yakima police officers say it happened when Martinez rode his bike to oncoming traffic in the 1500 block of North 1st Street.
The driver tried to swerve out of the way but was too late.
The driver of the van is not expected to be cited.
For many local law enforcement agencies, those who witness crimes may not only be able to help locate the criminals but also where their weapons may have come from.
That's a big question. They're always asking in part two of our series, where the guns come from.
News 23's Greg Nieto takes us to another crime scene to find out where the weapons in this crime may have come from.
Sometimes these kids get them and they'll trade them to each other on the street. It's hard to keep track once it hits the street.
On July 9th, three kids from one Wapato gang walked toward a rival gang expecting a fist fight.
Instead they became targets of a.38 caliber pistol.
Two kids, since recovered, suffered wounds to the head and hip.
Once Wapato police arrived on the scene, they faced the usual task of trying to backtrack what led up to the shooting, which usually starts with finding the gun.
And that's where someone who is at the crime scene can lend a helping hand.
I think that's what's very beneficial for the police department, using witnesses in that area to help us kind of track down where the location of the firearms are so we can get them right away.
Witnesses were able to point police to this alleyway where the gun was found just a few feet away from where the crime took place.
But just because witnesses tell police where the gun is doesn't always mean they're going to tell them where it came from.
And not just witnesses, but sometimes those who are involved also play dumb.
They tell you, usually I bought it from some guy on the street, it may be Juan or Jose or George or Jim or whoever, and they only know a first name or they don't know any name.
Which for the most part is what is happening in this case, as nobody seems to know where the gun came from.
The regional office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms says they trace about 20 or so guns a month, involving gang shootings for central Washington, and say many of the guns are being brought in from the outside.
Each one of these traces we're finding that it has not come from, these people are not going into the gun stores and buying them from dealers.
We've even traced them back to California where they've been stolen.
The.32 caliber used in this most recent Wapato shooting has yet to be fully traced back to its original owner, and is now in the hands of a crime lab being fingerprinted for evidence in court.
Through witness descriptions, all three teens responsible for the shootings have been positively ID'd.
In Wapato, I'm Greg Nieto, News 23 NBC.
Tomorrow in part three of Greg's series, he talks to one local man who used a weapon in a crime. The man tells Greg where he got his weapon, why he used it, and how his time in prison has changed his thinking.
One guy wants to keep kids out of prison, a pro basketball referee in fact. He's in Yakima today to spend some time with the county's troubled youth.
Tommy Nunez is a long time NBA ref who's spent over 10 years traveling around the nation meeting with kids from juvenile detention centers.
He says he was once a troubled kid himself, but he's straightened out his life and he wants the kids to know they can do it too.
I just want to go in there and maybe have a few laughs with these kids. Maybe they'll smile a little bit. Maybe they won't. I don't know. Maybe I'll be a flop.
But it's what I want to do, and it's probably what I want to be remembered as later on, not so much basketball, because that's a game. And this here is real life.
According to one Yakima County probation officer, Nunez's visits do make an impact on the troubled kids. He says that's why he's always welcome back to Yakima.
There aren't a lot of role models for these kids. And so here this year we had an opportunity again. It doesn't cost the county anything. It's free will.
And it's a resource that really touches on these kids' lives.
Now if he'd throw Rodman out of a game, he'd really get their attention. Nunez met with about 40 kids per hour this afternoon. He will spend some more time in Yakima tomorrow running a special basketball camp for area kids.
And I'm sure that gets their attention. That's great. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Well, pretty cool is what the weather was like too. I mean, I enjoyed the fact that we were down about 10 degrees a couple days ago. It still seems hot though. And a little windy too.
It was a little windy. Some showers. We did have some thunder.