Some men picked Christmas to shut off the lights for residents. The two men have pleaded guilty to vandalizing power substations in Washington state. The Xmas attacks left thousands without power. Jeremy Crahan, of Puyallup, admitted in U.S. District Court in Tacoma that he and Matthew Greenwood conspired to cut electrical power. The said they did it in order to break into ATM machines and businesses to steal money.
According to acting U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman in a news release, in the plea agreement, Crahan, 40, and Greenwood, 32, damaged four power substations on Dec. 25, 2022. The substations targeted were the Graham and Elk Plain substations operated by Tacoma Power and the Kapowsin and Hemlock substations operated by Puget Sound Energy.
Last year, multiple federal agencies had been tipped off and have been warning utilities of the risk of white supremacist attacks on the nation’s electrical infrastructure. For example, in February, three white supremacists from Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin pleaded guilty to federal crimes related to a plot to attack the power grid. Following an armed attack on a substation in North Carolina in December, federal energy officials ordered a review of security measures.
In all four Washington cases, the men forced their way into fenced areas surrounding the substations and damaged equipment to cause a power outage. The issue of race did not come up. Crahan admitted that he helped plan the scheme and primarily served as a lookout that day.
Substations and power lines are often targeted by thieves looking to sell copper. Currently, ordinary thievery has become less profitable thanks to improving surveillance technology and a shift to a type of copper that’s harder to resell. This country has a system that includes more than 50,000 substations. They are scattered aming outposts where high-voltage power is converted to the smaller voltages that come out of your power outlets. Both men face up to 20 years in prison.
