An attack on an immigrant detention center in Washington state on Saturday ended in the death of the suspect.
The Washington Post reports that the perpetrator has been identified by the authorities as 69-year-old Willem Van Spronsen, a resident of Vashon Island, Washington.
The incident took place just “hours after a peaceful rally protesting immigrant detentions outside the facility,” a police spokeswoman told Reuters.
Immigrants, ICE, and “incendiary devices”
Around 4 a.m. on the morning of July 13, police in Tacoma, Washington responded to an attack on the Northwest Detention Center, which is maintained by an organization called The GEO Group on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Reuters reports.
Authorities arrived to find Van Spronsen armed with a rifle and what reports have called “incendiary devices,” including flares, according to a local ABC News affiliate.
Van Spronsen, who some reports have tied to Antifa, allegedly threw firebombs at the detention center and cars in the parking lot, setting one vehicle on fire. He also tried to blow up a propane tank before being shot and killed by police, according to Reuters.
No one else was killed or injured in the attack.
“A horrific act of violence”
The attack on the ICE detention center comes amid heated debates in Washington, D.C. over immigration reform and funding for border security.
While President Donald Trump has ordered sweeping deportations in an effort to curb the flow of migrants to the U.S. southern border, the likes of freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have escalated the immigration controversy by using loaded terms like “concentration camps” to describe areas where migrants are detained until they can be processed, Fox News reports.
It’s that sort of rhetoric that prompted The GEO Group to issue a scathing rebuke of Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez, who they say are making “baseless accusations” against their facilities.
“The outrageous and baseless accusations that have been leveled against our facilities have led to misplaced aggression and a dangerous environment for our employees, whose safety is our top priority,” a spokesman for the group told Reuters. “Our facilities have never been overcrowded, nor have they ever housed unaccompanied minors.”
For his part, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat vying for the White House in 2020, called the attack on the facility a “horrific act of violence” in a tweet on Saturday.
This morning’s attack at the ICE detention center in Tacoma was a horrific act of violence that has shaken us all. While we await details and ID of the perpetrator, thanks to @TacomaPD for their quick response to ensure no harm came to individuals being detained or any employees
— Governor Jay Inslee (@GovInslee) July 13, 2019
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