Bombs Planted In Cafes Malfunctioned Two Devices Had Potential For Substantial Damage

Two restaurant bombs planted by a man who later killed himself caused only minimal damage because they did not explode properly.

Jeff Howard, a spokesman for the Oregon State Police Arson and Bomb Squad, said in both incidents Sunday the devices’ detonators discharged but only a small portion of the explosives went off.

‘They did not function as intended,” Howard said.

“The quantity did have the possibility of substantial structural damage. We would have expected a lot of casualties.”

Michael Ernest McClain, 42, of Astoria, set off two bombs, first at The Dutch Cup, and then three to four minutes later a quarter-mile away at the Pig’n Pancake, before shooting himself in the head with a .38-caliber revolver, police said.

Six people suffered minor injuries in the Pig’n Pancake blast and were treated and released from Columbia Memorial Hospital.

McClain’s motive for the bombings and his suicide remains a mystery, police said. He had been a customer at the Pig’n Pancake but not for some time. No suicide note has been found.

Police searched a rural residence east of Astoria and said items of interest were seized. Officers said McClain had a connection to the property but did not release further details.

McClain placed a 15-pound bomb, constructed from both homemade and purchased materials, near the coat rack at The Dutch Cup Restaurant. The bomb placed inside the front doorway at the Pig’n Pancake restaurant weighed approximately 25 pounds.

Astorians tried to make sense of the bombings.

“It’s kind of spooky someone would do this,” said Ron Woltjer, a Clatsop County prosecutor at the bombing scene. “It shows how vulnerable we are. There is no security system in the world that will prevent this kind of random violence.”

Astoria Mayor Willis Van Dusen on Monday called the bombings an act of terrorism.

“Sometimes you think it will never happen to us,” Van Dusen said.

McClain’s father ended his life in a Portland courtroom 17 years ago. Michael McClain watched as his father, Ernest Elmer McClain, 59, shot and killed a lawyer for his fourth wife in 1979, and then killed himself.

One of the younger McClain’s sister had drowned a month earlier.

Reached at her Astoria home, Michael McClain’s mother said her son had been traumatized by witnessing his father’s death. Joyce Ferguson was Ernest McClain’s second wife.

McClain had a criminal history dating back to the early 1980s for menacing with guns, assault, other weapons charges, burglary and delivery of marijuana.