Local News in Brief : Costa Mesa : Scare Caused by Man Wired Up With Radio
A 41-year-old man with a citizen’s band radio and wires strapped to his body caused a 1 1/2-hour bomb scare in the Mesa Verde Shopping Center on Thursday afternoon.
Police received a call about 2:20 p.m. about a man in a bank who was speaking incoherently. Officers eventually found him standing outside a bicycle shop and, while questioning him, discovered that the man had wires strapped to his body.
“When they asked him what (the wires) were, he was speaking incoherently. He did not make any sense, so they felt he may be unstable,” Sgt. Tom Winter said.
Officers placed the man alone inside a police car in the middle of the shopping center parking lot and waited for the Sheriff Department’s bomb squad. As curious employees and shoppers looked on, bomb squad technicians removed the attachments, which proved to be harmless.
“Why he attached (the equipment) to his body, we don’t know,” Winter said. “It appears he has some kind of mental problems.”
The man was taken into custody and, Winter said, police may decide to have him undergo psychiatric examination.
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