High-profile Helder

I was napping in a fleabag hotel in Las Vegas when the news broadcast awakened me. I had completed an arduous two days and nights interviewing topless dancers for Time magazine, filing my story late that morning. I’d fallen asleep while watching Oprah.

It was about 5 p.m. on May 7, when the anchor came on with the breaking story that the Mailbox Bomber had been cornered east of Reno. Details were sketchy. He was a 21-year-old college student and had at least one gun. There’d been a high-speed chase.

I was not scheduled to return home until the following evening, but I called my Time boss. He told me to catch the next flight out of town.

I don’t lead with this stuff out of any kind of self-aggrandizement. Yes, I’m a stringer for Time, and my beat is Nevada, which I think is pretty cool, but it doesn’t impress anyone but my dad’s golfing buddies. The position has given me, however, a perspective on how the media work that I didn’t get as a local journalist.

On arrival, I didn’t even notice the massing lights on the northeast corner of the parking lot at the Washoe County Jail. I walked in, stopping at the desk to inquire as to whether the bomber had been booked. He hadn’t.

Outside, the weather had turned nasty. It was in the low 40s and breezy. Even though it was 10 p.m., the sky was bright, with 20 or so satellite trucks and support vehicles packed into the corner near the driveway where Lucas John Helder would be brought in and admitted into the jail.

Reporters stood clustered together about 10 feet above the entry to the crime labs and inmate intake doors. Near the electrically controlled gate with a chain-link, razor-wire top stood a cameraman and a still photographer. I hollered down to ask what I had to do to get down there.

“We’re the bullshitters,” one yelled back.

“The bullshitters?” I asked, somewhat surprised. I can shoot the breeze as well as the next guy, so I figured I’d be down there momentarily.

“No, the pool shooters.”

Pool shooting works like this. In high-profile news, or often in courtroom settings, one cameraman and one still photographer are allowed to get close to the action, but they have to share their shots with everyone. This serves one purpose, to keep the media out of the way. If you’ve ever wondered why all the pictures of an event are the same, no matter which station you tune to or which newspaper you pick up, this is the reason.

It’s got a couple of questionable aspects: It’s an example of the willing cooperation between government and the independent media to manage the news, and it tends to decontextualize what the public sees of news events.

We reporters waited, exchanging available information. In situations like this, everyone is desperate for details. When a reporter is covering news in the field, he or she is separated from the usual information-gathering apparatus—the Internet, faxes and telephones—although that is quickly changing in these days of wireless communications and cell phones. The result, in a live situation, is that rumors and speculation get mixed in with the facts.

The other side of the information exchange is the competitive nature of the news. Reporters are looking for that one detail that nobody else has, the scoop, that slipped tidbit given in an unguarded moment in a one-on-one interview. That’s what we call “news.” Get it? It’s new. So, while it is important to share information, reporters keep their best stuff under their hats.

The next six hours before Luke Helder arrived at the jail included dozens of live television shots, thousands of words of notes feverishly written, minutes of analysis aired, few credentialed, on-the-record quotes given and no news. The big news was 50 miles away.

KOLO-TV was most on top of things that night. At least they had John Tyson, who was able to say, with authority, what would happen to Helder once he was booked. The pool video shooter was a KOLO cameraman, and the tape looked good as well. Throughout this event, the local media were just as aggressive as the regional and national outlets, which I don’t usually see.

When the officer came out to tell us, at 12:10 a.m., that Helder was being brought in, the fevered pitch reached a new fervor. Only 34 minutes later, two tan Ford Explorers bearing FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents and Luke Helder came through the gate. Helder had his feet on the parking lot for maybe seven seconds before entering the maw of the jail. It was then that the picture of Helder smiling in the black Kurt Cobain T-shirt and khaki shorts was taken.

Here’s an example of what I meant by the pool shooting decontextualizing what’s going on. Everybody’s seen the shot, and everyone has said the same thing: “What does that idiot have to smile about?”

He was smiling because the instant he stepped out of the SUV, reporters began shouting ridiculous questions at him from some 30 feet away. “Do you have anything to say to the media?” and “Do you have anything to say to your parents?”

This would be akin to asking a guy standing on the freeway, “So, how do you feel about that oncoming semi?”

The action over, many of the media people left. I stayed because I wanted to get a look at Helder’s Honda Accord, which made it to the jail’s crime lab about a half-hour later.

The only things noteworthy about Helder’s charcoal-gray car were Sublime’s self-titled CD and a gray baseball hat with the word “Independent” visible through the rear window. There was a black case, probably a guitar, on the backseat floor and a yellow jacket on the front passenger seat.

Second-day story

So who’s this guy, Helder, anyway?

He’s 5-feet-9-inches tall, has green eyes and brown hair and weighs 170 pounds. He was born May 5, 1981. His 21st birthday was two days after the first bombs were discovered in Iowa and Illinois. Other bombs were found in Nebraska, Colorado and Texas for a total of 18. There were six more found in his car. He injured six people.

He was a third-year industrial technology student at University of Wisconsin-Stout. A couple of years ago, he played guitar in a grunge band, Apathy, writing most of the music. He was a big Kurt Cobain fan. He was adopted at age 3 by Cameron and Pamela Helder. He grew up in Pine Island, Minn. He was a janitor.

Friends from high school and college have told media sources that he was a fairly normal kid with some strange philosophies, a bit of a stoner. Apparently, he had trouble getting people to listen to his ideas, and more than one law enforcement officer (and a letter he sent to the school newspaper, www.badgerherald.com), said he set the bombs to get attention.

Helder holds solipsistic beliefs—”Mentally and physically, you produce your own reality”—aggravated by a narcissistic attitude—”I’m here to help you realize/understand that you will live no matter what!” He believes that life and death are one and that the government holds the people in servitude by promoting fear of death.

Finally, he admits that he intended to hurt or kill people—”I’m dismissing a few individuals from reality, to change all of you for the better, surely you can understand my logic”—although he says he would have preferred to only “dismiss … a single famous person” because “there is less risk of being detained.”

Helder may have had trouble convincing people of the validity of his beliefs because he’s nuts—either through habitual drugs use or schizophrenia. He’s probably not crazy enough to get off on an insanity plea, but if Occam’s razor is applied to Helder’s situation—well, nobody in his right mind travels the country blowing off explosives in the outline of a smiley face.

Wednesday morning, I headed to the federal courthouse. News trucks had relocated to the south side of the building. Inside, I chatted with a reporter from the Denver Post who’d been told not to return to Colorado without an interview with Helder.

When the clerk’s office opened, I verified that his extradition and bail hearing (not arraignment, as was reported) was at 3 p.m. in Judge Robert J. McQuaid Jr.’s courtroom.

With that concrete information, I felt comfortable going back to the jail. Just then, Luke Helder was moved from the jail to the courthouse. We probably crossed paths. At any rate, it was at that moment that Reno Gazette-Journal photographer Scott Sady snapped that beautiful shot of Helder making the “heavy metal” sign.

I, on the other hand, was able to speak to Washoe County Sheriff Dennis Balaam when he gave an impromptu conference.

Balaam supplied some delicious details about Helder’s overnight incarceration, like that Helder had fallen asleep almost immediately after booking. He was held in a suicide-watch cell under surveillance. He’d been awakened at 5 a.m. for breakfast—cold cereal, a piece of toast and a cup of coffee—and had fallen back asleep before his transport to the courthouse.

The sheriff also mentioned that Helder spoke to his parents on the telephone and had been worried that they weren’t going to stand by him. He ought to have been worried. Helder was charged in Iowa with using an explosive to maliciously destroy property affecting interstate commerce and with using a destructive device to commit a crime of violence. In addition, he was booked into the Reno jail for possession of a destructive device.

Finally, the sheriff suggested that Helder’s parents would not be coming out to Reno to visit their son: “Financially, they thought it would be a huge burden on them right now to come out.”

That turned out to be wrong, but I didn’t begrudge the misstatement. Throughout the entire event, Balaam and his public information officer, Deputy Michelle Young, were straightforward and helpful. The bottom line is that not one in 100 elected officials or PIOs is prepared to deal with a media onslaught of this magnitude. Most can’t even cope with the local daily media.

First day in court

Luke Helder’s time in Magistrate McQuaid’s courtroom was deceptively underwhelming. Going in, few people thought he’d fight extradition, and fewer still thought he’d be granted some kind of bail.

Neither happened, but from a media standpoint there were a couple of interesting things. First, cameras weren’t allowed in the courtroom, so courtroom artists were lined up in the front row of the jury box. Second, because of the lack of cameras, the only outlets that reported more than the general facts of what occurred in the courtroom—no extradition battle, no bail—were the newspapers and wire services.

What wasn’t apparent in news reports was that Helder sounded like a doper numb nuts on an Excellent Adventure. He replied to the judge’s questions with “yeah,” “for sure” and “most definitely.” He couldn’t have sounded less mature if he’d called the judge “dude.”

The only emotion Helder exhibited was that he flinched when McQuaid said Helder had “mental-health issues.”

You’ve got to hand it to the federal public defender, Vito de la Cruz. He didn’t betray any irony when he asked that Helder, the most notorious domestic terrorist since Timothy McVeigh, be released to his parents’ custody.

Outside the building, the action moved back into the realm of television news. Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Denney took questions regarding what happened in the hearing. He held his composure well, although he was literally mobbed by cameras and reporters. He was pushed back at least 10 feet as everyone scrambled for position.

De la Cruz handled the post-courtroom situation best. While the media were occupied with Denney’s conference, he walked out the federal building’s front door and to his office. When several reporters showed up at his office, his assistant cordially delivered the “no comment.”

The courtroom drama had one other result. Documents provided by the clerk’s office gave black-and-white testimony that Helder’s father had turned him in, revealed details about the bombs’ construction and showed Helder had been stopped three times by police during his cross-country bombing spree.

Now that’s the stuff that gladdens a reporter’s heart.

The next morning, Thursday, May 9, I headed to the jail. I’d missed the elder Helders’ arrival at Reno-Tahoe International Airport, learning of it in the RG-J. I didn’t have to wait long before the parents entered through the same gate that had admitted their son.

Cameron Helder came out about 40 minutes later and made this statement.

“We are here to see our son. We told him we love him. We feel a lot better after speaking to him. This is going to be a long process. It’s already been really hard on us. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims and the victims. We do need our privacy. The media has really been hounding us. It’s tough. After this point, I won’t have a statement. I would like to thank Special Agent Paul McCabe and the FBI; also, the Sheriff’s Department here for making this visit possible for us. We have a better understanding of what’s going through his mind and what’s happening. I’m sorry, that’s all I’m going to say.”

When Helder’s father returned to the safe confines of the building, Sheriff Balaam took over the conference, explaining that Helder was separated from his parents by glass and that they spoke on telephones. He gave details about Helder’s lodging—wood-slat bed, stainless-steel toilet and sink, camera in the corner, mattress, but no pillow. He told us about his clothing: a canvas, Velcroed, smock-type thing and no shoes. He said that Helder would be moved to Iowa in the next 24 hours by U.S. marshals.

“This is the highest-profile individual that has been here,” he said, taking note of the media frenzy. “We’ve had a lot of people who have been held in this facility over the 30 years that I’ve been here, but this is probably the most media attention by far.”

I left, feeling secure that my day was done. I was wrong. That afternoon, an editor sent me an e-mail asking for confirmation of facts. Suffice it to say, newspapers and magazines across the country were getting facts about the story wrong, and the editor wanted clarification. One such misstatement was in The New York Times, which said the pipe “bombs were powered by Christmas bulbs.”

That was a misinterpretation of FBI Special Agent Mark Heavrin’s testimony, which was released with the court documents. Basically, it’s correct to say the bombs were triggered (electricity passes through the bulb’s filament and touches off the gunpowder) by Christmas tree bulbs. They were powered by 9-volt batteries.

I called Special Agent Gayle Jacobs, spokeswoman for the Las Vegas FBI office (Reno doesn’t have an FBI spokesperson), and she told me that she couldn’t comment about the information in Heavrin’s affidavit because she didn’t have a copy of it. She asked me to send one to her personal e-mail account. So, invoking my willing suspension of disbelief, I scanned the document, converted it into an Acrobat PDF, and e-mailed it to her. Such are the hoops the public has to jump through to get simple, obvious information.

I then called the sheriff’s office and set up an interview with Sheriff Balaam and a bomb expert.

When the bomb expert called Jacobs to verify that it was OK to talk to me, she told him one of the pages of the PDF document didn’t make it to her, which basically stifled him.

In the course of my conversation with Balaam one other thing became apparent. Balaam was just as sick of Lucas J. Helder as I was, saying, “I’ll be glad about 8 o’clock tomorrow. I’ll be really glad by then.”

“I’ll be here by 7.”

“You want to be here before 7.”

That is often what a scoop sounds like. As far as I knew, nobody else in the press knew exactly what time the U.S. marshals would be picking up Helder for transport to Iowa.

I called my friend, photographer David Robert, and told him what I knew. I figured if he were the only photographer on the scene when Helder was transferred, he would have an opportunity for a shot that could be sold around the nation.

I was wrong. When we showed up at 6 a.m. the next morning, Friday, the pool shooters were in place, although there were fewer than half the media people who were there 55 hours before. KTVN was the big presence that morning, particularly reporter Kurtis Ming. David elected to stay and try to get a shot.

There is a perch on the wall above the door where Helder would make his exit. It’s nearly as good a shot as the pool photographers had, although the angle is weird. Dave took his roost there and began his watch. The temperature dropped, and snow began to flurry. RG-J photographer Marilyn Newton soon joined David.

Many false starts later—the U.S. marshals actually appeared and then left to have breakfast—they picked Helder up and put him on a plane to take the first real steps down the long road to justice.

In the five hours that passed between the scheduled 6:30 a.m. pickup time and the actual time he left, about 11:30 a.m., we reporters stood in the freezing temperatures and debated why we were there at all.

“This isn’t news,” said one, who, like me, was woefully underdressed for the weather. “Where’s the news? They’re giving some guy a ride to the airport. It’s just an accident of fate that he came here at all. If he’d made it another hour west, he’d be in another state, and we wouldn’t even be here.”

Addendum: Lucas J. Helder appeared in federal court in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on May 10. U.S. Public Defender Jane Kelly was appointed to be his attorney. Helder’s preliminary hearing was May 22 in Cedar Rapids.