Bomb-Laden Truck Defused on Westside

Bomb experts disarmed and removed five 55-gallon steel drums filled with explosive chemicals near an Internal Revenue Service office in West Los Angeles Thursday, ending a daylong threat that forced evacuation of thousands of people from their homes, kept hundreds away from work and created massive traffic jams.

The detonator-equipped drums, loaded into the back of a pickup truck, apparently had been set to go off early Thursday when the truck was found burning on Colby Avenue near Olympic Boulevard, police said. The truck had been ticketed several times, indicating it had been parked there for some time, police said.

“It did have the potential of being a very large explosion, perhaps the largest we’ve ever had,” said Assistant Los Angeles Police Chief Robert Vernon.

“We can’t say at this moment that it would have flattened so many blocks, but we have to assume the worst,” Vernon said earlier.

There were no injuries, although the truck containing the explosives was heavily damaged by the fire.

While bomb experts cautiously examined the suspicious drums near the 15500 block of Olympic Boulevard, police officers ordered residents out of a 16-block area, going house-to-house later in the day to warn them about a “dangerous bomb.” Residents were allowed back in the area after 6 p.m.

The original evacuation area straddled Olympic, extending a block north to Mississippi Avenue, a block south to Tennessee Avenue, east to Sawtelle Boulevard and west to Barrington Avenue. By early afternoon, the zone had been extended and traffic restrictions tightened.

Police blocked intersections, snarling traffic on one of the most heavily traveled corridors in the city. Motorists, diverted to side streets from busy Olympic Boulevard, moved slowly through the evacuation area during the morning rush hour.

While authorities could provide no motive for the potential bombing, they noted that an IRS office, with up to 350 employees, is located on the fifth floor of the nearby six-story Olympic Plaza. The complex also houses the City National Bank Building.

The same office building was rocked by explosions in September, 1988, when five separate bombs were set off in a stolen car in an underground parking garage. Police said they were left without direct leads to suggest a motive or a suspect. No one was injured in the blasts.

“We are not ignoring similarities between this and the other bombing incident,” police spokesman Fred Nixon said Thursday.

But he declined to discuss details of the investigation.

IRS spokesman Rob Giannangeli said he thought it was a “natural assumption” that the federal tax-collecting agency might have been the target of Thursday’s incident.

“It’s the second incident at that building,” Giannangeli said. “We have a tendency to believe that would be the case, just from the nature of the work we do. But until someone is apprehended, I don’t think we’ll ever know.

“Southern California’s had a history of the tax protest movement, and some of these people are not exactly enamored (of) us.”

But, Giannangeli said, there is also a possibility that the motive is that of “some disgruntled guy who was turned down by the bank for his loan.”

The bomb threat developed from what seemed at first a relatively minor incident that began to unfold at about 2 a.m. Firefighters extinguished a burning pickup truck parked on Colby Avenue near Olympic Boulevard, just across the street from Fire Station 59.

Jeff Nord, a 21-year-old tow truck driver, said he was going to breakfast Thursday when he saw firefighters pouring water on the burning truck. As the truck burned, Nord said he heard popping noises that sounded like “shotgun blasts.”

The truck fire had burned out and firefighters had gone when Nord returned between 3:30 and 4 a.m., he said.

When authorities examined the charred remains of the truck about two hours later, however, they became suspicious that the metal drums in the bed of the pickup might contain volatile liquids arranged with detonators to explode.

They immediately ordered the evacuation of the area, setting off a day of confusion and concern for nearby residents and workers.

Hundreds were forced to park blocks from their offices and walk to work, only to be turned back by police and fire lines and warnings of a possible bomb in the area.

One of those who reached her office on foot, Geegee Auger, 43, secretary in a law firm down the block from Olympic Plaza, said police came in shortly after 1 p.m.

“First they strongly suggested that we leave,” she said. “Then we were told that we must leave. They didn’t say why.”

As the day wore on, a command post was set up at Stoner Playground, about half a mile northwest of where the truck had burned. Hundreds of police officers and firefighters moved into the neighborhood and were joined by FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents.

Police and fire officials brought in large portable command posts. Dozens of fire engines were assembled and half a dozen paramedic units stood by. Motorcycle officers patrolled the evacuation area.

At mid-afternoon, specialists opened the drums and found an unidentified liquid inside, Nixon said. The barrels were lifted out of the bed of the burned truck with a forklift and taken away for analysis and disposal.

Times staff writers Darrell Dawsey, David Ferrell and Richard Beene contributed to this article.