Don’t Be Lulled Into False Security
In the end, Charles Barbee, Robert Berry and Verne Jay Merrell were no more than common criminals who terrorized their neighbors in the name of an unholy cause.
Like zealots from the left and the right before them, they hated government, corporations, banks and the media. And used that hatred to justify armed robberies and bombings that endangered employees of those institutions. Now, they’re going to prison for a long time.
As one of the targets of their violence, The Spokesman-Review is relieved. The 24 guilty verdicts handed down Thursday against the Sandpoint militants end a crime spree that began on April Fool’s Day 1996, when a pipe bomb was dropped into our Spokane Valley office stairwell. The bombings and armed robberies, however, weren’t simply crimes against U.S. Bank, Planned Parenthood and us. The real victims were hard-working employees caught in the middle of this anti-establishment jihad.
We thank the God Barbee, Berry and Merrell claim to serve that no one was hurt or killed. The first bomb shredded a heavy metal door, shattered windows and filled our Valley office with smoke. It narrowly missed harming two children of a circulation employee who’d been leaning against the door moments earlier. Eleven minutes later, the trio detonated a second bomb at U.S. Bank’s Valley branch, just after employees and customers had scrambled outside to safety.
On July 13, 1996, the three struck again, bombing the lobby of a Planned Parenthood clinic before robbing and bombing U.S. Bank again. Fortunately, the clinic was closed because a woman who worked there had taken the day off. No one was injured at the bank, either, although several shaken employees later would ask to be transferred to another branch.
One slip along the way, and Barbee, Berry and Merrell could have faced murder charges, too - not that they would have cared if they’d hurt someone. Timothy McVeigh proved how indifferent to human suffering a domestic terrorist can be when he killed scores in Oklahoma City with his truck bomb.
Chances are good these Sandpoint men never will commit another crime in this region. But that doesn’t mean we’re safe from domestic terrorism. Others likely will take their place, as they have in the past. This region has been cursed with an ideological sickness since Richard Butler first founded his Aryan Nations compound decades ago near Hayden Lake. All of us must remain vigilant.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board