Police said today that early Wednesday morning a passerby alerted them to a handmade explosive device “made to maim people” left by someone on Ord and 18th streets next to the market street stairway on Ord Street.
The baseball-sized device was sitting in plain view against a concrete wall, police said.
“It looked like someone was experimenting and set the device near a wall,” said Sgt. Larry Gray from the Mission District Police Station.
“It causes us great concern that someone is making devices like this,” he said.
The device had no timer and had been sitting in the rain. A passerby noticed it at 7 a.m., called the police and the Mission station responded first. The bomb squad secured the area and “neutralized” the device, Gray said.
When asked if the rain had already neutralized the device by the time the bomb squad arrived, Sgt. Gray said, “I’m not willing to go that far.”
He declined to say what kind of material the baseball-sized device had been made of but that, “it was home made and primitive. “
“It had the potential of being quite deadly,” Sgt. Gray said
He added that it appeared that the maker of the device might have been trying to test it out in the open.
Press Officer Lyn Tomioka said that the matter is under investigation.
Yikes! Ugh – was this a hate bomb directed toward the LGBT community in the Castro?
This happened on WEDNESDAY morning, May 26, 2010.
I live a block away – heard the BOOM – saw the police cars.