PORTLAND, Ore. — By all accounts, Bill Hakim was one of those solid cops with plenty of experience and sound judgment who other police officers respect and depend on to make a tough decision, especially on the bomb squad.
It makes his death in a bomb explosion at a small-town bank all the more shocking and puzzling to the law enforcement community he served as a senior trooper for the Oregon State Police.
Hakim, 51, was killed last Friday while he was handling what he believed to be a hoax bomb at the West Coast Bank branch in Woodburn, a farming town of about 23,000 just south of Portland.
The bank branch is in a commercial strip lined with apartment buildings where many people were unaware of the danger until after they heard about the death on the news.
Also killed was Woodburn police Capt. Tom Tennant, who was apparently holding the green metal box that contained the bomb. The city’s police chief, Scott Russell, lost a leg and was critically injured, while a bank employee was hit by shrapnel that imbedded in the bone of her leg.
Several bomb experts said they did not want to second-guess the decision by Hakim, but they agreed it was unusual to conclude a potential bomb was harmless with the visual and X-ray inspection the trooper made.
“It’s definitely a hands-off approach, and send in the robot nowadays,” said Hal Lowder, who began his own company after he retired as a fire and explosion investigator with the Metro Atlanta Fire Department.
He noted that X-ray inspection is not always conclusive, and it is difficult to visually detect many explosive materials.
“You really can’t tell,” Lowder said. “That thing could be full of sand, Play-Doh or TNT.”
The Oregon State Police have declined to say why their Explosive Ordnance Disposal truck, relatively new equipment acquired in 2006, was not at the scene with its bomb-detection tools, robots, protective suits and a containment vessel.
Lowder said bomb disposal robots typically have water cannons, shotgun shells to act as detonators and clawed arms to manipulate a suspected bomb.
The only reason to handle a potential bomb is immediate danger to people nearby, such as a large crowd, he said.
“The days of movie heroes like Bruce Willis sweating it out and trying to decide which wire to cut are gone and never really happened anyway,” Lowder said.
The key is to evacuate the area and isolate the device, he said.
The power of the explosion can also be estimated, experts say, giving police an idea about how extensively they must evacuate the area where a potential bomb is found.
“You know it would produce a certain radius of destruction and air blast radius, and how dangerous it might be to people and to buildings,” Baird said. “But the first thing you have to do is get people away.”
Shortly after the Woodburn bomb went off, there was speculation the device was taken inside to help contain a potential blast, but it now appears Hakim was planning to dismantle what he thought was a fake in order to gather evidence.
A hoax device had been planted at a nearby Wells Fargo bank, which was inspected by Hakim and an FBI bomb expert before they found the other device.
Jimmie Oxley, a University of Rhode Island chemistry professor and explosives expert, said she did not have any details about the Oregon case but it is common for a bomber to plant a phony device to test police reaction.
“There are no absolutes in this,” she said. “You can understand why they might have thought the second was a fake if it was similar to the first.”
“We have very stringent laws against fake bombs,” Oxley added. “People might wonder why if, it’s just fake, the law has to be so tough. But you can see in this situation why that is.”
The experts agreed there is an added danger for homemade bombs that use common materials for explosives or detonators because they are unpredictable.
There have been no details about the Woodburn bomb or the materials it may have contained, only the indication it was extremely powerful.
“The more difficult part of a homemade explosive device is how do you detonate it,” Baird said. “If it’s a relatively stable explosive you have to have some sort of detonator. But if it doesn’t require a detonator you’re taking a big risk in handling it, much less deploying it.”
LeRon Howland, former Oregon State Police superintendent, said he was the one who presented Hakim his certificate when he graduated from its training division to start his career in 1997.
“I remember the smile on his face and how proud he was to become part of the state police family,” Howland said.
Like other law enforcement veterans, Howland said he was surprised by the bombing deaths, especially because Hakim was regarded as “one of the best in the business” who was trained in explosives in the Navy.
“It’s very tragic something like this happened,” Howland said. “But it does happen.”
State police officials have deferred any comment on the case until after a multiagency investigation is completed, followed by an independent review assisted by federal agencies.
“That will tell us what happened and why, and whether there are any lessons learned that could be helpful to all bomb technicians nationwide and not just our department,” said Lt. Gregg Hastings, state police spokesman.
The FBI office in Portland and FBI bomb experts at its laboratory in Quantico, Va., declined to comment, referring questions to police and prosecutors in Marion County, home to Woodburn and the state capital.
Police made quick arrests in the Woodburn bombing, and charged 32-year-old Joshua Turnidge and his 57-year-old father, Bruce Turnidge, with aggravated murder, but no motive has been revealed so far.
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