Associated Press
SPOKANE — Three high school students were responsible for a string of small bombs that exploded in mailboxes in northern Spokane County this week, the sheriff’s office said Friday.
After interviewing the three, deputies are convinced the spree had nothing to do with a more dangerous series of pipe bombs that exploded in mailboxes in the Midwest, Sheriff’s Capt. Cal Walker said.
Deputies quizzed the three extensively about the Midwest bombings, Walker said.
"They had no clue what we were talking about," he said. "They don’t watch the news. It was not a copycat thing."
The two men and one woman, all 18 years old, are seniors at a high school in the northern suburbs of Spokane, Walker said. He declined to release their names or the name of the school.
They have not been arrested, he said.
Spokane County officials will wait until the local U.S. attorney decides if he will file federal charges against the three before considering state charges, Walker said.
While officers believe the bombings were pranks, charges of damaging mail or mailboxes carry stiff penalties, Walker said. No one was injured in the three Spokane County explosions.
Damaging mailboxes is a federal offense with a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Deputies learned the identities of the three from an officer who was assigned to the high school and overheard students talking about the crimes, Walker said.
Deputies went to the high school to interview the trio. "They were very forthcoming," Walker said. All but one of the targets was chosen at random.
The woman was in a vehicle with the two men for only one of the bombings, and wanted no part of the others, Walker said.
Deputies believe the two men were involved in six to eight bombings in the past year, including three this week, he said.
The bombs were plastic soft drink bottles filled with drain cleaner and a crumpled ball of aluminum foil, deputies said. A chemical reaction quickly causes the contents to expand and burst the bottle.
They are basically intended to blow open the doors off rural mailboxes, Walker said.
While the bombs are not particularly dangerous, they could spray caustic drain cleaner on a person, he said.
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