Two Men Arrested in Connection With Attacks on Washington State Power Substations
The men didn’t do it in the name of climate change or far-left groups.
Authorities arrested and charged Matthew Greenwood and Jeremy Crahan for vandalizing Washington state’s power grid on Christmas Day.
Greenwood and Crahan face two charges: conspiracy to damage energy facilities and possession of unregistered firearms.
People theorized the person or persons involved had connections to environmental groups, ANTIFA, or any other far-left groups.
According to the complaint, Greenwood told investigators after his arrest that the two knocked out power so they could burglarize a business and steal from the cash register. The business was not identified in the complaint.
“We have seen attacks such as these increase in Western Washington and throughout the country and must treat each incident seriously,” Seattle U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said in a news release. “The outages on Christmas left thousands in the dark and cold and put some who need power for medical devices at extreme risk.”
The complaint says the two men “went to a local business, CRAHAN drilled out a lock, and GREENWOOD entered to steal from the cash register.”
Greenwood and Crahan allegedly targeted three substations early Christmas morning and the fourth that evening.
The crime left 15,000 people without power.
Surveillance cameras caught the two men at the Elk Plain substation. The FBI could not identify the men.
So the FBI examined cell phone records. The investigation found “two phones in the vicinity” of the four stations “at the time of the attacks.”
The authorities also found that Crahan is a “registered owner of a 1990 Dodge pickup truck” in Washington.
They allege that type of car is also in the surveillance video.
Digital privacy. Car registration. It’s hard to go off the grid. I thought a lot of people were obsessed with true crime shows.
I agree with Jazz Shaw at Hot Air. I want to know why the FBI hasn’t used these tactics to solve the other power station attacks in the nation.
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Petty criminals with big dreams.
That outfit is also not conspicuous at all.
If you use and carry a cellphone you have decided to give up your privacy to a very large degree. They are convenient for sure but each person has to decide if the convenience outweighs the loss of privacy. I got rid of mine seven years ago b/c I was tired of having a digital leash where everyone expects an immediate answer not for privacy reasons but I don’t mind the privacy aspect. Landlines still available or voip. Get an e reader to carry around if you must have something to do when out of the house.
I never considered mine a leash. I answered if I wanted to. I’d shut off the ringer if busy. This greatly upset a boss that I had. He called me a lot. Not to micromanage, but to bounce fresh ideas off of me to see what I thought of them. While I took that as a complement, he would break the rhythm of the work that I was doing. So I had to explain to him if he gets the answering machine that I will call him back as soon as possible. He understood, and from them on everything was fine.
In other cases, and other circumstances, and with other employers, it was the same thing. If I was busy, I didn’t answer.
Turning the phone off does no good if you don’t want to be tracked. When the phone is off the tower can still ping it. It used to be possible to turn the phone off AND remove the battery That rendered the phone untraceable and more importantly impossible to use as a bug.
Technically you can still remove the battery. You just won’t have a working phone any more.
I agree with this comment about cell phones. Have never had one myself, and don’t intend.. If I express the issue of being tracked, others usually reply that they have nothing to hide so aren’t concerned about tracking, implying that I must have something to hide. Then I reply that No, I have nothing to hide, but that’s not the point at all. They seem unable to grasp the nuance of my comment. It’s as though being tracked is just a new condition of human existence.
Hmm. So why did they have to take out 4 electrical substations to burglarize one business? And what of all the other recent electrical grid attacks?
Washington law enforcement sources say they received a memo from the FBI warning them about attacks to power stations in the Pacific Northwest.
“Power companies in Oregon and Washington have reported physical attacks on substations, using hand tools, arson, firearms and metal chains possibly in response to an online call for attacks on critical infrastructure. In recent attacks, criminal actors bypassed security by cutting the fence links, lighting nearby fires, shooting equipment from a distance or throwing objects over the fence and onto equipment.”
Sorry, this one has the distinct aroma of press manipulation to achieve a political agenda, like not blaming the criminal leftists who actually did it.
“So why did they have to take out 4 electrical substations to burglarize one business?”
If this is accurate, we definitely deserve an answer to it.
Or to make ANY arrests of ‘Jane’s Revenge’ members and their like for the hundreds of attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, pro-life organizations, and churches since the Dobbs opinion.
As criminals, these guys are complete amatuers.
I always leave my home computer turned to porn and my cellphone at home when I commit crimes.
I also park a distance away and walk to the scene on foot.
Rember kids..3 people can keep a secret only if 2 of them are dead
For some of us, it also helps to lose 100 lbs of weight and 12″ of height to become less identifiable.
Yeah, or the police report would read “Suspect was found collapsed less than a hundred yards from the site and confessed upon being offered a donut.” That would be me, I’m afraid. I’m in shape. Round is a shape.
I often wondered what Billy Barty was up to….
It’s funny you mentioned that. I worked my way through college in a.liquor store. I can’t remember how many times guys would attempt to buy alcohol with an older relatives ID. Sometimes when I’d spot an obvious difference in description between who was standing in front of me and the guy the ID belonged to they’d attempt to argue. “I was heavier when I played football.” “Yeah, and you were 8 inche taller and bald GTFO!”
“I want to know why the FBI hasn’t used these tactics to solve
the other power station attacks inover 200 domestic terror attacks against churches, women’s shelters, and pro-life clinics throughout the nation.”An inexpensive introduction to the state of our services. In other instances, power substations were disabled through election in supply chains with transnational scope. In others, Green deals that provided intermittent/renewable/unreliable power supply and force systemic asynchronicity and darkness.
“the two knocked out power so they could burglarize a business and steal from the cash register.”
I could have told you from the photograph that they were Bond Villains.
“went to a local business, CRAHAN drilled out a lock, and GREENWOOD entered to steal from the cash register.”
Progressive prices (a.k.a. “inflation”)? Labor arbitrage (e.g. immigration reform)? Forward-thinking bag limits? Social progress, equity and inclusion?
Were they using fentanyl? The drug can lead to affirmative action including redistributive change and progressive conditions including liberal viability.
Check out “We the Governed” who has a pulse on Wa politics. He’s got to videos on this.
None of this smells like leftists— other than deliberately shutting down the dams and the other political stuff. They don’t need terrorists to shut off the power, the state is doing just fine.
Crime and anarchy here is so rampant that the random acts of destruction and even copper theft are probable. Also -these couldn’t be softer targets unless the utilities starting leaving high powered rifles and instruction manuals of what to aim for along with tools to cut stuff up. Even at locations where there is security… it’s rent-a-mall-cop on camera.
More diabolical would be the theory that a foreign entity is trying to systemically burn through the supply of spares and hit us hard. Once they do that- they could hit us hard in a coordinated attack and take the grid out for MONTHS.
Anyone who thinks for 2 seconds knows the grid attack would not be the only action served up to weaken us- you could expect some other stuff hard and fast to take place there as well. The stuff you are least able to manage would be the stuff that would happen. Hey- wildfire season is only a 6 month planning session away. and then… and then. All this is stuff that can be done with about a half dozen lightly trained guys who would never be detected or caught.
The fact that it hasn’t happened tells us a few things about China/Russia. Either they are unmotivated or really stupid.
Since the FBI is involved, I’ll remain skeptical.
Do you think they got John Deloreaned?
Holy crap, these alleged criminals are allegedly pretty dumb. If you’re going to commit a crime like that, leave your phone at home and don’t drive to the scene of the crime in your car. Ride the bus or steal an old Honda or something, pick up some $50 walkie talkies if you need to communicate.
There are some intelligent crooks. But for the most part people wind up in prison because they’re stupid
And that’s why criminal gangs need FBI infiltrators: to teach them simple shit like that.
It’s a crying shame what sort of idiots our public schools are turning out today.
I don’t buy it. There have been too many such attacks around the country. These morons may ….MAY have hit one, for the excuse they gave, but four doesn’t compute. This just looks too much like an FBI false flag operation.
I’m a bit of a skeptic…. Ok, a lot of a skeptic, but looks like they nailed these two cold. Still, there’s been a lot of these attacks and these two suspects don’t fit the MO of the others, so I’m looking forward to the rest of the attacks being narrowed down to various suspects in the near future using the same tools. Perhaps they can be convicted of trespassing and obstructing Congress so they all get longer sentences. Seems to be a theme…
I’m skeptical enough to think there will be platoons of Richard Jewels. Poor bastards with IQs in the high 80s to mid 90s interrogated and threatened virtually – or literally – to death.
Eugenics — the slow way.
Coincidence? Here is an apologia of Atifa’s urban crime spree by one Matthew Greenwood.
https://matthewgreenwood.us/antifa-hysteria-understanding-a-moral-panic/
When bad people do bad things, they encourage the development of the detection methods which will eventually be used by the totalitarian state.
” “I want to know why the FBI hasn’t used these tactics to solve the other power station attacks in over 200 domestic terror attacks against churches, women’s shelters, and pro-life clinics throughout the nation.” ”
The reason that they haven’t is those other attacks were approved by higher authorities, and maybe even aided by the FBI or other federal authorities.
Subotai Bahadur
Why are they wearing feedbags?
Those are “long COVID” masks.
That’s what I want to know. What the heck are those things?
Boneheads.
Why not just go behind the business you want to rob and pull open the fused cutout at the dip pole? Drop the power to just that business, and maybe a few other meters off the same transformer.
Worse, they didn’t even know which substation to hit, so they hit three and ended up starting a big investigation into what was going on.
Its not like the police in WA State investigate property crime anymore. That ended when George Floyd overdosed on Fentanyl. You can burglarize any store you want, and all the police do is file a report so the business owner can then file an insurance claim.
Gee, the official story sounds almost… unbelievable.
Unfortunately, in a society where the lowest tier of criminals tear apart walls just to steal a few dollars worth of metal, it is quite believable that a couple of thieves would not care how many people they endangered just to make stealing from the till a little easier.
The first step in stopping this is to see that such criminals are charged and sentenced according to all the consequences of their crimes. Tear a house apart to steal the pipes and wires – serve the sentence for theft of tens or even hundreds of thousands, not for the few dollars they got for the scrap metal. Destroy a power substation, and do time for the repair costs, for the costs to everyone who lost power, for any auto accidents at dead traffic lights, and for attempted murder or reckless endangerment for every one who’s life support used line power – or get the needle for felony murder if anyone died.