Despite the damage, fear and loss of life, the explosive devices driven into the Multnomah Athletic Club and detonated by a former employee could’ve been far more devastating, Portland police said during a news conference Monday afternoon.
“It is simply luck that we didn’t have a much larger blast,” Portland Police Bureau Sgt. Jim DeFrain, who works on the Metropolitan Explosive Disposal Unit, told reporters.
Just before 3 a.m. Saturday, Bruce Valentine Whitman, 49, crashed a rental vehicle through the glass windows of the MAC building. Whitman drove around inside the club’s ground floor before several pipe bombs inside the vehicle detonated. He died in the car after it went up in flames…