Two Indigents Held After Laguna Beach Blast Near City Hall

A man who said he was “tired of being harassed” by Laguna Beach police was arrested with a male companion hours after a stick of dynamite exploded beside City Hall early Friday, breaking 24 windows but causing no further damage and no injuries, authorities said.

Lt. James White said both suspects were known to police as part of Laguna’s “street-people” population, a group of homeless that frequents Laguna’s Main Beach.

“They’ve had a lot of contact with police in the past,” White said, identifying the pair as Donald Juan Wheeler, 23, and James Louis Durand, 27. Both gave the address of the same Laguna Beach shelter, police said.

White said Wheeler told police that he set the device because he was “tired of being harassed by police.”

White said both men had an arrest record for mostly petty crimes, “nothing major.”

Police denied having ever harassed the two men.

The dynamite was placed in a three-foot-wide landscaped space between two buildings--neither housing the Police Department--and it exploded a few minutes before 6 a.m., when no one was in either building, police said. “If it had been in a closed area, there would have been more damage,” White said.

About eight hours later, police investigators acting on a tip from other local street people arrested the two men at the city’s Main Beach on suspicion of setting off the bomb, officials said.

Damage was confined to windows in the city manager’s, city clerk’s and Recreation Department offices, Police Chief Neil Purcell said. He added that police had received no phone calls about the blast beforehand or afterward and that no note or graffiti had been found at the scene.

Six-Foot Fuse

Police said a jogger was near City Hall when the blast occurred but saw no one leaving the scene. According to Purcell, the dynamite appeared to have been detonated by a four- to six-foot length of fuse that burns at a rate of one foot every 45 seconds.

Laguna Beach Mayor Martha Collison said she could not imagine a motive for the bombing. “We’ve received no threats, no notes, no phone calls. It appears as though someone had a smart idea to drop a piece of dynamite. We don’t really feel it was directed at anyone.”

White said it was Wheeler who told investigators that he set off the bomb to “take a stand against police.” Durand has refused to talk to investigators, White said.

Police said they did not know how the pair obtained the explosive.

Times staff writer Robert Schwartz contributed to this story.