Beacon photo by Sara Bruestle

A bomb technician in a bomb suit (right) prepares to detonate a backpack at the Mukilteo ferry terminal on Thursday that a suspicious man said held a bomb. A Washington State Patrol bomb squad determined that there were no explosives inside the backpack.

Service on the Mukilteo ferry was suspended for about two hours Thursday morning after a man threatened to blow up the vessel. There was no actual bomb.

 

Police arrested 32-year-old Michael W. Harsh, of Langley, and booked him into the Snohomish County Jail for threatening to bomb the ferry. Bail was set at $25,000.

 

Washington State Patrol officials said they received reports of a suspicious man with a backpack on the ferry around 9 a.m. while en route to Mukilteo. The man had said there was a bomb in his backpack.

 

According to police, Harsh dropped the backpack from the ferry’s upper deck to the car deck below while it was crossing from Clinton to Mukilteo.

 

Several witnesses told police they overheard Harsh threatening to bomb the ferry.

 

“He was pretty intent that he wanted people to know,” said Trooper Keith Leary of the Washington State Patrol.

 

Mukilteo police responded to the scene around 9:10 a.m. and arrested Harsh as he was leaving the vessel. They removed his backpack from him.

 

A WSP bomb squad arrived soon after and secured a 1,000-foot perimeter around the ferry terminal. The ferry was then evacuated for a police search.

 

Leary said bomb technicians X-rayed the backpack and determined that there were only personal items and no explosives inside. As a safety precaution, a technician detonated the backpack, anyway.

 

 “They did a controlled detonation of the bag just to make sure there wasn’t anything that could have gone off,” Mukilteo Police Department spokesperson Cheol Kang said.

 

The Coast Guard and the FBI also responded. The Coast Guard surveyed the scene by boat and helicopter.

 

Several agents from the FBI Everett office are aiding in the investigation, Kang said.

 

“If there’s anything that has to do with terrorism and the transportation systems, they come out,” Kang said. “A bomb on the third busiest ferry of the state could definitely have a critical infrastructure impact if it were a legitimate incident.”

 

Ferry service between Whidbey and the mainland resumed around 11 a.m., soon after the backpack was detonated.

 

Leary said the WSP and FBI are interviewing Harsh and witnesses. He said they do not yet know why he was threatening to bomb the vessel.

 

He said he expected Harsh to be arraigned on the charges Tuesday.

 

Harsh, who also has connections to Everett, had no outstanding warrants, Leary said.

 

“Obviously, this is something we take very seriously,” Leary said. “We work with the ferry service very closely, and they have different drills to respond to things like this.”