She’s used to showing up on crime scenesbut Jackson County District Attorney Beth Heckert looked no further than her own parking lot Thursdayfor a case that’s clearly hitting close to home.
“You do wonder how much more significant the damage would of been, it could have been much more significant,” says Heckert.
Heckert got the call around five o’clock Wednesday morning.
“Someone threw something through a window I thought ok.. whatever,” says Heckert.
But by the time she arrived on scene, she realized the situation was far more serious. Ahomemade bomb had exploded feet from her office.
“It really started sinking in… this was an intentional act…someone was really trying to damage our building and cause difficulties to our office by doing that.”
Heckert says as the counties lead prosecutor she’s used to hearing threats.
“Sometimes they do blame us for things we’re sending people to prison on a regular basis.”
But she says nothing could prepare her for this.
“I really look at it as an attack on our whole community. It was an attack on my office but it was an attack on our whole community.”
Police officers from across the west coast are now investigating the case. One Heckert says she’d like to prosecute someday if she gets the chance.
“It needs to have a strong message sent to it that this is not going to be tolerated the damage was minimal but it could have been much worse.”
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