Thomas Goldstein and Andrew (Toby) Crittenden of the local progressive political organization Washington Bus were arrested in Pullman on Wednesday night for "allegedly attempting to break into the National Guard Armory," according to a very brief Associated Press report published in the Seattle Times this morning. That report said that the two "are being held at the Whitman County Jail in Colfax on charges of second-degree attempted burglary and third-degree malicious mischief," although as of this morning that wasn't true. Goldstein and Crittenden were released from detention on their own recognizance with no bail yesterday at 2:30 pm, their attorney Jeremy Benson just confirmed to The Stranger. They haven't been charged with any crime and are back in Seattle.

As the Associated Press report states, "Goldstein and Crittendon [sic] were in Pullman with The Washington Bus Project, which travels the state urging young people to become involved in various political issues. Police have no idea why they tried to get into the armory." According to a report published in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News yesterday (you have to have a subscription to the paper to read it online, though yesterday's story is quoted at length on this right-wing website):

Police allege they arrived to find Goldstein and Crittendon [sic] loitering in the front of the building. One of the men had bloody hands from the barbed wire. Tennant said officers found the fence damaged and spotted with blood, and the plastic covering of a telephone support beam also was bloody, apparently because the men attempted to use it to protect their hands from the barbs.

"Without any context, that sounds a little scary," attorney Benson agreed. "It's pretty silly. There's really no substance to this. And obviously authorites are taking this seriously so I don't want to diminish what they're doing or suggest that the work they're doing on this is somehow silly or unwarranted, but the media attention to this has been way off base and blowing this out of proportion." Benson hesitated to say exactly what the two were doing, but he confirmed enough details to get a much more realistic picture of what was going on. Among them: that a digital camera was confiscated from Crittenden ("So, they were taking pictures," Benson said), and that the two of them had seen a big truck on the other side of a fence that looked similar to the vehicle depicted on Washington Bus's stickers.

What it sounds like was going on: they went for a walk after dinner, or they were on a walk back to their hotel after dinner, and on their way they saw something that would make for a cool photo for the Washington Bus blog. According to Benson, a juvenile who was walking on the trails behind the armory saw two men attempting to climb a fence, assumed they were trying to enter the armory, thought something was up, and called the police.

Goldstein looked unbloodied and composed when The Stranger's news editor saw him this afternoon. He spoke with me very briefly by phone. "I was invited by the organization at Washington State University which does community engagement to give a speech. That's why I was in Pullman. I didn't go out to bomb the armory." He mentioned that the jacket he was wearing at the time belonged to a friend who's a veteran. "I'm constrained to comment [any more] because of legal counsel. I'm yearning to say stuff but I'm wearing a muzzle. And no charges have been filed at this time."

"I can tell you what they weren't doing," Benson said. "They certianly didn't have any intention of committing a crime in Pullman or inside the armory. And I think that's where the misunderstanding arose with law-enforcement." Benson added, "It was not criminal, not malicious, there was no intention to do any damage to property—nothing of that nature. I'm still in discussions with the prosecuting attorney. [The details of that discussion are] nothing I want to release right now, but it's very benign."

That, of course, is not how the incident is being portrayed on the right-wing website Red County. Here is the "analysis" of the incident written by Tom Forbes (pictured, via Red County's site) yesterday:

I certainly think the people of Pullman and Whitman County have a right to know who is funding attempts to break into the National Guard Armory, an act that could almost be considered terrorism, much less a felony. Armories, which often contain weapons and other sensitive equipment, have been a target of anti-war protesters and militant radicals, like the SDS, since the Sixties. It is noteworthy that the National Guardsmen who normally occupy the Armory are currently deployed in Iraq.

Beyond Skyline Public Works, which is a money-laundering operation for fat-cat leftists like George Soros, the group [Washington Bus] lists as "allies" on its website such ultra-liberal groups as Climate Solutions, Progressive Majority, OneAmerica, and the Washington State Labor Council.

Maybe Goldstein and Crittenden can conduct voter registration at the Whitman County Jail. We know how the Democrats love those felon votes.

Forbes was so proud of this piece of writing that at 1:46 pm today he sent it to editors at The Stranger, Crosscut, King 5 News, Seattle Magazine, Spokane's Spokesman-Review, Politicker.com, and the Washington Policy Center. I wrote back (because I was trying to track down details on the story myself):

Hey Tom — I'm working on doing some reporting on this. Have you done any reporting? I saw you quoting other reporting and giving your opinion, but do you know something not in your post about what they were doing?

Forbes wrote back:

Yes, I have some more information from the police probable cause affidavit here; http://www.redcounty.com/more-left-wing-activists-attempted-armory-break. I'll pass more details on to you as I get them.

The only new information in that post was that Goldstein and Crittenden were "in town as part of the Washington State University Civic Engagement Week," that one of them "was dressed in black," and that:

According to the police probable cause affadavit, neither man was intoxicated and they carried no burglary tools or anything else that would indicate what their goal might have been, such as vandalism. A video was found on one of their cell phones, however, of the break-in attempt. The Pullman Police Department remains mystified and troubled over the motive behind this crime, as it was committed on U.S. military property. The pair, who have remained silent so far, were represented at their booking by a high-powered Seattle attorney.

I wrote back to Forbes:

Yes, but I understand the judge released them from detention on their own recognizance with no bail. Doesn't sound like the judge thinks it's terrorism, or much of anything at all. They are do-gooders who travel the state trying to get people involved in politics. What am I missing?

(After all, I've met Goldstein and Crittenden on several occasions. When The Stranger published voter registration forms on the cover of the printed Stranger in the fall, and then put drop-off boxes for those forms throughout the city, we did that in partnership with the Washington Bus.)

Forbes wrote back:

The motive.

You hit the nail on the head. Why would so-called "do-gooders" engage in criminal activity and film themselves while doing it, particularly on military property of a unit currently deployed in Iraq? This case is interesting for all the questions it raises, many of which will probably never be answered. Why would two men with promising careers risk throwing it all away for a meaningless stunt that will likely net them some time in jail? What does it have to with getting young people involved in politics? What did they hope to accomplish if they had gotten into the armory?

Tom

Hmm. I'm going to take a wild guess here, Tom. I think they were trying to take a photo of a truck that looks like the truck in their organization's logo.