Bomb Squad’s Turf, Danger Keep Growing

When Orange County bomb investigators arrived at a Seal Beach apartment building on April 15, they gingerly approached a car with a small box on the front hood.

Inside was a pipe bomb, apparently left by a woman’s spurned admirer. Wearing protective “moon” suits, the investigators stepped closer and reached toward it with a long hook. They had moved it barely a quarter of an inch when it detonated, sending up a fireball.

The incident was one of 232 for the Orange County Sheriff’s Bomb Squad during the first four months of this year,incidents that resulted in defusing 26 bombs and removing 128 containers of explosive materials.

Top 10 in Incidents

The county ranks among the top 10 metropolitan areas nationwide in number of explosive incidents handled by a bomb squad, Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials said.

The number of bombings and attempted bombings has multiplied since 1970, when the bomb squad formed and responded to a mere 64 calls. One reason for the increase: Investigators say technological advances have made it easier to build and conceal bombs.

As Orange County bomb squad leader Lt. George Johnson explained, “We went from a wind-up alarm clock as a timing device to integrated electronic circuitry.”

But investigators say bombs have always been relatively simple to make. Anyone with a basic understanding of chemistry can create an explosive device using materials available at the corner store, said Larry Cornelison, agent in charge of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms office in Santa Ana. Explosive devices also can be purchased readily on the black market, he said.

“Fortunately, we don’t have that many wackos around or we would be in deep trouble,” Cornelison said.

The vast majority of explosives the bomb squad finds are, for example, devices concocted by teen-agers for thrills or abandoned war munitions discovered in back yards. Investigators just two weeks ago were called to disarm a live Civil War cannon ball that had been sitting on someone’s mantle.

Designed to Maim, Kill

But about 20% of the devices are designed to maim and kill. The bomb left on the car hood in Seal Beach, investigators said, would have killed the young woman who had ignored her anonymous admirer’s requests to meet for a drink. Police still don’t know who the man is.

Fortunately, bomb officials say, few of the devices wind up hurting anybody. But some do.

In 1985, American-Arab activist Alex M. Odeh was killed when a bomb exploded in his Santa Ana office. In February, 1987, a man apparently trying to rig a device to a retired Marine general’s car in Laguna Hills died when it prematurely detonated. In 1984, an airfreight executive in Tustin opened a letter bomb from a former employee. The blast blew a hole in his stomach and ripped apart both his hands.

Each year in Orange County, Johnson said, about eight people are injured handling explosives. Most are young men with a “fascination for things that make loud noises,” Johnson said.

Three months ago, two teen-age boys lost hands when gunpowder they were loading into a canister exploded in a rural area off the Ortega Highway.

“That stuff is so sensitive that it takes only 5 grains--about the amount that would be on the end of an eraser--to set it off,” Johnson said.

In Irvine two years ago, a teen-age boy and girl were injured when a drainage pipe they had stuffed with black powder and a fuse exploded.

The use of explosives increased nationwide during the politically turbulent 1960s, Cornelison said. To counteract the new threat, Congress in 1970 passed the Explosives Control Act, empowering the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to investigate explosives incidents.

In Orange County, Johnson said, the bomb squad formed in 1970 consisted of himself and a few other patrolmen working the bomb duty voluntarily. Today, it consists of four full-time technicians and a sergeant.

The squad is called out an average of two times a day, somewhere in the county, to investigate suspicious packages or devices. Half the time, the calls prove groundless. The rest of the time the explosives they find range from those that can blow up a compact car to those that could take out a city block.

One of the squad’s more hair-raising calls, Johnson recalled, came in 1983 when nine pipe bombs--all remotely controlled--were discovered in an Armenian bakery in Anaheim. Police evacuated a half-square-mile area, and four bomb squad officers worked 16 hours disarming the bombs. No one was injured.

When they work, Johnson said, the bomb squad technicians wear fiberglass-reinforced suits weighing 54 pounds, safety boots and a helmet. Their hands remain exposed so they can handle the sensitive bombing mechanisms, Johnson said.

To help minimize the danger, the squad members use remote-controlled grappling hooks and a robot equipped with TV camera and two-way radio so it can be sent down a hallway looking for a suspicious device. The squad also has two dogs trained to sniff for some of the chemical components contained in explosive devices.

So far, Johnson said, the Orange County bomb squad has been lucky; none of the members have been seriously injured. A reminder of their constant danger came last year, though, when two bomb technicians for the Los Angeles Police Department were killed when a device exploded as they tried to disarm it.

According to a 1986 analysis by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, revenge is the motive in a third of all bombings and vandalism in another third. The rest involve political protest, labor strife, insurance fraud, extortion and other motives.

The same analysis shows pipe bombs are used 40% of the time, followed by bombs in glass bottles and then dynamite sticks.

The bomb does not have to be big to pack a wallop. Less than two pounds of strategically concealed plastic explosives, for example, is enough to demolish a car, Cornelison said. And a bomb can be concealed almost anywhere: in a desk, in a car, even in a telephone. In fact, a brochure for businesses put out by the ATF says that the probability of finding a bomb that looks like a bomb “is almost nonexistent.”

One giveaway, Johnson said, is the absence of a return address on a letter or package. Johnson suggested that businesses warn their mail handlers to be on the lookout for any suspicious envelopes or packages.

ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT BOMB SQUAD YEARLY STATISTICS

Year 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 Timed, concealed bombs disarmed 21 38 42 24 94 27 57 Bomb explosions investigated 30 32 16 21 14 29 32 Total explosives encountered 236 303 258 267 254 205 242 Total calls 560 664 552 596 552 534 559

Year 1986 1987 Timed, concealed bombs disarmed 54 53 Bomb explosions investigated 37 29 Total explosives encountered 258 275 Total calls 682 667

Source: Orange County Sheriff’s Department