FBI probing MLK route bomb for racial motives: SPOKANE, Wash. -- Federal agents are investigating race as a possible motive behind an abandoned backpack containing a functional bomb after it was left along the downtown route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade.
'The confluence of the holiday, the march and the device is inescapable, but we are not at the point where we can draw any particular motive,' said Frank Harrill, special agent in charge of the Spokane FBI office.
The suspicious backpack was spotted by three city employees about an hour before the parade was to start Monday, Harrill said. They saw wires and immediately alerted law enforcement, who disabled it without incident, he said.
