Not a Palin, not a hurricane, what could it be?

[MichaelHarris]

I'm a freelance photojournalist in Washington and walked right into a story. Pullman Washington Police were called out to a suspicious device connected to a bridge near the WSU campus. This kind of call is a big deal around eastern Washington and northern Idaho for many reasons. Depending on how one's mind thinks it could be militia gun nuts or militant students. I went with the former because I've actually seen them and the damage they can do. Some will tell you that the area is now pretty free of white supremacists and gun nuts but it's not really true. I'm not talking about hunters and collectors, I'm talking about the guys who would buy a bazooka if they could.

Anyway, back to the story. Freelance photographers get absolutely no respect, we're like old gum that sticks to your shoe. I'm standing along the police barrier with the "real" media shooting roadblock shots when one of the officers walks up and says, "It looks like the Bomb Squad won't make it until tomorrow, they are in Spokane." That was going to be the big shot, the bomb squad with the robots and shields and all that good stuff. It's cold, it's boring so the other photographers left. I didn't.

Around midnight a police Sergeant walks up and says, "Since you're the only one left wanna take a picture of the bomb?" "Well hell yeah" I replied. We walked under the bridge and hanging from a tree was part of the "bomb". In the water was another part of the device. The two parts were connected by wires taped to the bridge support. Here it is, the closest I've ever been to a bomb:







Ok, so it wasn't a bomb, turns out it was an engineering experiment. Scary looking though.