Alleged Pipe Bomber Arrested
May 07, 2002
LOVELOCK, Nev. – A Midwestern college student wanted for questioning in mailbox bombings that injured six people in the American heartland was arrested late Tuesday.
Luke John Helder, 21, was arrested after a brief standoff with law enforcement officers who had surrounded his car in the small city of Lovelock, on Interstate 80 in the remote Humboldt Mountains about 40 miles east of Reno.
"There was no resistance to the arrest, and he will be taken to the Washoe County jail in Reno, but we don't know when," an FBI spokeswoman in Las Vegas told United Press International.
"He is definitely a key suspect," said Peter Freitag, an FBI supervisor in Wisconsin.
ABC News reported that a motorist spotted Helder driving his 1992 Honda on the highway east of Lovelock and contacted the sheriff's department, which passed the information on to the Nevada Highway Patrol.
Helder was pulled over and reportedly held a gun to his head before being coaxed into surrendering without further incident. Bomb squad experts were dispatched to the scene to check the car for explosives.
The FBI said its agents were involved in the arrest along with the highway patrol, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and sheriff's deputies from Pershing and Churchill counties.
The FBI had issued an all-points bulletin for Helder earlier Tuesday. Agents said they wanted to question Helder about 18 pipe bombs found in mailboxes in five states stretching from Illinois to to Colorado to Texas.
The bombs were accompanied by letters critical of the federal government and capitalism and were considered to be acts of domestic terrorism by investigators.
Helder, a Minnesotan who attends college in Wisconsin and is a member of a punk rock band, just wanted attention, his father said.
The FBI released a description of Helder after the latest pipe bomb was found in a stand-alone mailbox in a residential area of Amarillo, a city of nearly 158,000 in the Texas Panhandle. The device was similar to the others, the FBI said.
Copyright 2002 by United Press International.
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