Don't Trust Snakes: A familiar story, from "simpler times"

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“I know where I'm headed.”

ROGER THORNHILL

Thursday, February 01, 2007

A familiar story, from "simpler times"

Anyone remember this little fiasco?

Two days before the explosion of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island, Seattle was already gearing up for it's own Oklahoma City-style debacle. The only problem was there was no problem. Well, except for one small incident blown completely out of proportion by the City's Finest.

Jason Sprinkle, a member of a local arts cooperative, had been commissioned by the Job Corps to construct a metal scuplture for the Corps 25th anniversary. Sprinkle built a huge heart. The Corps rejected it. In a gesture of protest, Sprinkle, known in the arts community as Subculture Joe for his guerilla art activities, loaded the heart into the back of his pick-up truck, drove to Westlake Center (in the "heart" of downtown), shut off the truck, punctured its tires and walked away. People watching the street action laughed.

Unfortunately, the humor was completely lost on a street cop. As he began to inspect the truck, he found some graffiti scrawled on a bumper. It read, "Timberlake Carpentry Rules (the Bomb)!" Turns out the graffiti had come from another art project some two years previous -- a Job Corps project. And "the Bomb" was the name of the pick-up truck. (Any old car buff can tell you how common a term that is.) The cop, however, saw the pick-up as a 20-foot Ryder van filled with fertilizer. In a matter of minutes a nine block area was evacuated and cordoned off. It took four and a half hours for the Seattle Police Department to discover it was just an art project. (Most of that time was spent getting a bomb robot from Boeing Field, then tinkering with it because it didn't work.) Meanwhile, Spinkle was on the phone, trying to get through to the Mayor's office and the Seattle Art Commission to explain it was nothing more than a sculpture. His phone calls were refused.

It didn't take long before Sprinkle was arrested. He was held on $100,000 bail and charged under an obscure new Washington law, "Intimidation with an Explosive." Doesn't matter that he neither intimidated nor employed explosives. Nor did he ever make a bomb threat. But you can't talk to a man with a shotgun in his hand, and Smackwater Jack, aka Norm Maleng, arch-Republican and King County Prosecutor running for governor, lathered himself into a rabid frenzy.

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