Joe Biden
FBI found 150 bombs on family farm
Spotted on pictures of Joe Biden
Petter J Larsson
Updated 00.37 | Published 00.33
A man is suspected of having had a homemade bomb and weapons cache on his family farm in Virginia.
More than 150 homemade explosives were found in a raid on the father of two, who had been sniping at pictures of Joe Biden.
It could be the largest seizure in FBI history, investigators say.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI has found more than 150 homemade bombs during a raid on a farm in Virginia, USA. Investigators said on Tuesday that it was “preliminarily assessed as the largest seizure of ready-made explosives in FBI history,” writes the BBC.
It was on December 17 last year that Brad Spafford was arrested in Isle of Wight County, 290 miles south of Washington DC. The FBI had received a tip that he was collecting weapons and homemade ammunition in a large warehouse on the farm that he shared with his wife and two young children.
According to investigators, some of the explosives were found in one of the bedrooms, in an unsecured backpack with the words “
” – “no lives matter” – on it. No lives matter, or NLM, is often used as an expression of a violent far-right ideology.
Shot at Biden image
Brad Spafford had used images of US President Joe Biden to practice sniping and expressed hope that the country's Vice President Kamala Harris would be assassinated.
He had also recently applied for permission to start sniping with a rifle at a local shooting range, court documents state according to the BBC.
According to the indictment, a neighbor reported that the man continued to build bombs even after he lost three fingers on his right hand in 2021 "while working with a homemade explosive device".
Wanted to build a turret
The neighbor had worked in the police force and had been wearing a hidden recording device when he visited the 20-hectare farm last year.
Spafford, who worked in a machine shop, had told the neighbor that he planned to install a .50-caliber gun turret on his roof.
He had also shared a theory that children reported missing on the news had actually been kidnapped by the US government to be trained as school shooters.
The neighbor had collected evidence that led the FBI to raid and search the yard. There, they found the explosives scattered throughout the home.
“Extreme danger to society”
According to the FBI’s initial assessment, most of the explosives were so-called pipe bombs. Most of them were in a separate garage and had been sorted by color. Some had been marked as “life-threatening.”
Several bombs were also found stuffed into a wearable vest, court documents state.
In addition to the pipe bombs, investigators say they found a can of the highly sensitive explosive HMTD, which the FBI says is so unstable that it can explode with just a change in temperature.
The can of HMTD was marked "dangerous" and "do not touch" - and was stored in a freezer next to food that was accessible to children, the court said.
Prosecutors call Brad Spafford an "extreme danger to society", writes the American court newspaper Court watch.
"Hard-working family man"
Spafford denies that he poses any danger to society and has requested to be released from custody before trial.
“There is not an ounce of evidence in the record that Mr. Spafford ever threatened anyone and the suggestion that anyone could be in danger because of his political views and comments is without merit,” his lawyers wrote in their motion.
“In fact, the evidence rather shows that Mr. Spafford is not a danger but a hard-working family man with no criminal record.”
So far, he has only been charged with possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle, although investigators say more charges are likely to follow, the BBC reports.
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