Memories of Homemade Bombs

Guest blogging by actor Tammy Batey. -ed.  See her original 1999 article at the NewsWrights United Blog by clicking here.

We rehearsed the photographer scene on Wednesday. It’s night and the police have surrounded a house believing a suspect is holed up inside. The police have cordoned off the area but we’ve somehow made it close to the action. We’re high on adrenaline and eager to get the perfect shot for our respective newspapers before officers catch us and kick us out of the area. 

 

The scene rang true and brought back memories of covering Stratton R. Maxey when I was at the Federal Way Mirror. And it led me to do something I haven’t done in a long time -- dig out an old newspaper article. I suspect this play will supply me with plenty more incentives to dig.

On April 14, 1999, Maxey accidentally blew off his left hand while handling a homemade bomb. Besides taking off Maxey’s left hand, the blast was powerful enough to blow a hole in the floor of the house. 

 

It turned out the bomb was only the start of Maxey’s arsenal, which included a British-made armored personal carrier, 40 firearms, about 50,000 rounds of high-powered military ammunition, several thousand rounds of handgun ammunition and a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher.

Law enforcement officials, including investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, surrounded the area and reporters and photographers were cordoned out a half-mile from the house. Unfortunately, I did not find a way to sneak closer the way the photographers in the scene I rehearsed did. The photo that ran on the front page, as I recall, was of a far-off shot of the house with law enforcement in the foreground.

But I did have one of those thrilling moments that every reporter dreams of. I didn’t sneak close to the house but I took a risk and it paid off. Hospital personnel are notorious for preventing reporters from talking to anyone they desperately want to talk to for a story, whether accident victims or suspected criminals. 

 

Several planets magically aligned. I talked to a hospital worker who probably didn’t know the rules or hadn’t been briefed by law enforcement yet. I spoke in the casual way of a friend of Maxey’s, not a reporter. Basically, I didn’t out myself as a reporter. And so, when I asked for his room, the hospital worker patched me through. 

 

I introduced myself as a reporter and asked him about his condition and about his arsenal. He declined to respond but didn’t hang up so I just kept asking him questions.

And then it happened. I told him his neighbors were curious about him and Maxey finally heard a question he couldn’t resist. 

 

“I’m sure they are,” he said before hanging up the phone. 

 

A thrill went down my scoop-loving body when he answered my question and gave me what I believe was the only quote from him to appear in any newspaper in the weeks following the bomb blast. And it’s the memory of that thrill that I will use to drive my character through my photographer scene in The New New News.