The degradation of these systems in Pierce County, a southern suburb of Seattle, left more than 14,000 homes without electricity on Christmas Day, local police said. An investigation was opened, but no suspects were arrested on Sunday, the police detailed in a press release, assuring that for the moment they were unable to know whether or not it was a coordinated attack.
Police, however, said they were aware of similar events elsewhere in Washington state as well as in Oregon (Northwest) and North Carolina (Southeast). Federal police also warned in early December of threats to the power grid of the Tacoma Public Utilities company, which owns two of the sabotaged facilities, according to a press release. Activists of violent extremist groups”have developed credible and targeted plans to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020“, the Department of Homeland Security had declared last January in a report, cited by the American media.
