Police say bomb threat left in revenge over ex-girlfriend

Published 9:11 pm Friday, October 3, 2008

EVERETT — A bomb threat Tuesday at the Everett Transit Station apparently was a man’s desperate attempt to get an ex-girlfriend to call him back.

A maintenance worker found three threatening notes in the men’s room at the station around 9:45 a.m. and police were called, according to a report filed in Everett District Court.

“There is a bomb in this building that will go off at 4:30,” the notes read, according to the report.

All it would take to prevent the explosion, the note explained, was a call to a 17-year-old girl.

Police reached the girl’s mother, who explained that an ex-boyfriend had been trying to reach her.

Officers tracked down the former boyfriend, 23. The man at first denied involvement with the threat.

When police contacted him again on Wednesday, the man allegedly admitted writing the notes, the report said.

“Yeah, I wrote the notes,” the man told police, according to the report. “I was just pissed off at (the girl) for not getting back to me. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz said police treat all bomb threats as emergencies.

“We take them all seriously,” he said. “When we have the opportunity to identify a suspect and make arrests, we’re going to do that.”

On Tuesday afternoon, the station was evacuated as a precaution, Everett city spokeswoman Kate Reardon said. About 200 people work in the building and as many as 2,000 pass through on their way to buses and trains.

The man was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of threats to bomb. A judge ordered him held in lieu of $1,000 bail.

Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.