Another Attack on Federal Law Enforcement

By Noah Rothman

Friday, February 20, 2026

 

It began with a call to a 911 dispatcher. Someone had stolen an ambulance from one of the bays at St. Luke’s Meridian Medical Center in Meridian, Idaho. Local police believe the suspect weaved the vehicle across the parking lot to pick up a cache of gasoline canisters, which had been pre-staged in a row of bushes. The suspect had assembled a mobile firebomb.

 

It was just after 11 p.m. on Thursday night when the suspect gunned the ambulance directly into the front doors of The Portico, another nearby medical center where the Department of Homeland Security occupied office space. The attacker likely knew that federal law enforcement was utilizing the space he targeted. After all, the “hospital has faced criticism,” U.S. News & World Report’s dispatch read, “for leasing space to the Department of Homeland Security while President Donald Trump’s administration carries out his immigration enforcement crackdown.”

 

The suspect rammed the ambulance directly into the building’s façade, leaving behind a scene of devastation reminiscent of a video game, one local radio station observed — “although this incident was very real, very dangerous, and not ‘fun’ at all.” The vehicle immobilized, the attacker reportedly exited the ambulance and poured accelerant inside and around the ambulance in an attempt to detonate the massive firebomb. But it would not catch. With authorities converging on the attacker, the suspect fled the scene.

 

“This was absolutely an act of violence, and if the suspect had not been interrupted, there is no doubt this building would have been burned, putting the lives of first responders and others at risk,” said Meridian Police Chief Tracy Basterrechea.

 

“There has been a lot of rhetoric surrounding the Department of Homeland Security’s using office space at this location,” he continued, “with comments in some social media such as ‘property damage isn’t violence’ — is absolutely false.”

 

The suspect remains at large, and law enforcement has not established a motive for this attack. But we can hazard some speculation. The target was a controversial DHS facility. The weapon was a vehicle-borne petrol bomb. The chatter that preceded the attack was typified by the absolute conviction that property destruction does not constitute violence — a road-worn feature of both anarchistic and elite left-wing discourse. These are the familiar features associated with left-wing political violence.

 

This attack was not thwarted, and this crime was not victimless. The attacker managed to destroy a building façade and disable an emergency medical vehicle. That the attack could have been far worse does not mitigate the damage already done. It is an attack that fits within a historical pattern of political violence perpetrated by ideologically inspired attackers.

 

We cannot make any definitive determinations yet, but informed observers can posit an educated guess as to the perpetrator’s motives. This attacker wasn’t the first to be moved to violence by them, and he or she will not be the last.