Full Notification

MOSES LAKE, Wash. (28DEC2018) ― A 39-year-old Moses Lake man is in the Grant County Jail this morning after a suspected homemade explosive device was found in the back seat of his car during a Wednesday afternoon traffic stop and a deeper bombing plan was later uncovered by investigators.

Ryan S. Palmer is lodged in the Grant County Jail on $100,000 bail. A judge this morning found probable cause to hold Palmer for investigation of second degree burglary and attempted threats to bomb.

Palmer was pulled over by a Grant County sheriff’s deputy for a minor traffic violation just before 3 p.m. Thursday. During the stop, the deputy saw an object resembling an explosive device in the back seat. The Washington State Patrol bomb squad was summoned and rendered the device safe around 11 p.m.

The traffic stop was in the main entrance driveway of the REC Silicon plant on Road N-Northeast. Palmer’s car was stopped outside of the plant’s perimeter fence and at least 300 feet from any REC plant facility. REC is not believed to be a target.

According to the probable cause statement submitted to the court by investigators, Palmer stated that up until 2015 he had worked as a chemical driver for Nutrien Ag Solutions, 2426 Road N-Northeast, Moses Lake. Palmer believed Nutrien Ag Solutions did not have safe workplace practices and believed his exposure to chemicals contributed to his daughter’s birth defects. Palmer also stated that he had “frequently” “walked all over the plant” on over twenty occasions in an attempt to demonstrate what he perceived as lax security measures.

Palmer stated that after taking fertilizer from the Nutrien Ag Solutions plant, he obtained diesel fuel and constructed a mortar as an ignition source. He said he intended to build an explosive device, enter the Nutrien Ag Solutions Moses Lake plant with the device, then drive to the Nutrien Ag Solutions offices in Pasco to inform the management there about how he had taken the materials from the Moses Lake plant and “explain how dangerous and easy it would be for someone who wanted to do some damage to succeed.”

Palmer also told detectives about several detailed plans he had imagined to cause damage or set off explosives at the Nutrien Ag Solutions plant. When asked by a detective about what the bomb would do, Palmer asked the detective if he had “ever heard of Timothy McVeigh?”.

Ammonium nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel oil combined create ANFO, which is a compound used both as a commercial explosive and in the manufacture of improvised bombs.

The WSP is analyzing evidence. The investigation continues.

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