July 26, 1993: White Supremacist Church Members Arrested for Bombing NAACP Office

Police arrest two Washington State residents, Jeremiah Gordon Knesal and Wayne Paul Wooten, both 19, for shoplifting at a mall parking lot in Salinas, California. Knesal is a leader of a local chapter of the Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973, Early 1992 - January 1993, and July 15, 1993). Upon searching Knesal’s car, officers find three pipe bombs, four loaded long-barrel weapons, military apparel, ammunition, wigs, climbing gear, white supremacist literature, and a page from a Portland, Oregon, telephone book listing Jewish agencies and synagogues. Under questioning from the FBI, Knesal confesses to his involvement in the July 20 firebombing of a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) office in Tacoma, Washington. Knesal implicates Mark Frank Kowaalski, an ex-convict and member of the “skinhead” group American Front, as his partner in the bombing. FBI agents arrest Kowaalski the same day in Seattle, and find evidence linking him to the bombing as well as Knesal and Wooten. Agents will later say that the Tacoma bombing was part of a larger plan to attack Jewish and African-American institutions, military installations (particularly those housing submarines), gay and lesbian gathering places, and radio and television stations. The three also reportedly planned to assassinate two rap music performers, Ice Cube and Ice-T. [Anti-Defamation League, 1993; Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/1999]