An arsonist targeted the office of a Washington state representative early Monday morning.
“Last night 2 individuals broke a window and threw a lit flare into the office of my seatmate, Rep. Andrew Barkis,” tweeted Washington state. Rep. JT Wilcox.
“We have no information about perps or motivation, but I’m very concerned. Thank goodness the flare landed on a masonry floor,” he added, including a video of the incident.
Two people can be seen in the video approaching the front of the office around 4 a.m. on June 13. One person struck a window and broke the glass.
The other individual was seen dropping a lit road flare into the office and walking away.
Governor Jay Inslee tweeted “Such attempts at violence are abhorrent. We’re thankful no one was hurt. Hopefully law enforcement is able to identify these individuals before they inflict any more harm”.
“Thank you, Governor. We need to cast out criminals, regardless of their motivation. Glad you spoke out,” Wilcox said.
Lieutenant Paul Lower of the Olympia Police Department told Fox News Digital that burglars in the area “create diversionary crimes” to draw attention away from targets.
“I’m not quite of the same feeling that somebody would do an arson and burn a building down to just try to rob an antique store,” Barkis said. “It’s a highly charged environment that we live in right now”.
“My fear is when you look at what’s happened in Olympia, Seattle, and Portland, what’s been their M.O.?” he added. “The federal building, they’ve thrown incendiary devices, they’ve burned buildings, this is what has been done over the last couple of years so it’s no out of the ordinary”.
