Local News in Brief : TNT Makes Police Flee
A woman, apparently unaware of the danger she held in her hands, walked into a police station in Pacoima Friday afternoon and, as one officer put it, “slammed” down two aging and volatile sticks of dynamite.
The woman, whose identity was not released, told police she had been given the sticks by a male friend and “felt it was her duty” to take the foot-long, clear plastic package containing the sticks to the Foothill Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, said Capt. William Pruitt.
She told officers she believed the package could be dangerous, Pruitt said. It was.
Officers could see crystals on the sticks, a sign that nitroglycerin had oozed out of them, crystallized and become highly unstable. The desk officer quickly evacuated 50 officers, secretaries and other personnel from the building. Prisoners in the division’s jail were moved to a fenced-in service yard behind the station, he said.
The sticks were turned over to the police bomb squad, which detonated the explosives in its containment vehicle, which was waiting in front of the station near the corner of Osborne Street and San Fernando Road.
“We were glad we were able to save the station,” Pruitt said. Everyone went back in after 90 minutes.
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