4th Smoke Bomb Goes Off--This One at the O.C. Register

A smoke bomb released noxious fumes in the lobby of the Orange County Register on Tuesday, the fourth smoke bomb set off in Orange County in a week.

It went off about 2:15 p.m. in the office at 625 N. Grand Ave., authorities said. No one was injured, although a few employees and some visitors were evacuated, police reported.

On Monday, a smoke bomb went off in a Christian bookstore in Garden Grove. Others were planted last week at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove and at the Trinity Broadcasting Network studios in Tustin.

“It sounds similar to the other cases,” Santa Ana police spokeswoman Maureen Haacker said. “We’ll be calling the other agencies and comparing the case. . . . “

The smoke bomb--a white plastic trash bag containing volatile fluids--was found wrapped in a sports jacket that had been left on a chair, Haacker said. The combination of fluids “created a white smoke and a very strong smell.”

Police would not disclose the contents of a note left on a nearby table, but Register Assistant General Manager Tom Grochow said it made a “reference to God and God being upset.”

Haacker said a caller spoke to a receptionist shortly before the smoke bomb went off, talking “about religious subjects in a fanatical manner” and ending the conversation by saying, “I left you something in the lobby.”

However, Monica Hernandez, the receptionist, said that a reporter in the newspaper’s Garden Grove bureau called her to warn of a “very strange” man who had called claiming to have information about the Crystal Cathedral incident and wanting to bring something to the main office.

Smoke began to appear in the visitors’ area a few minutes later, prompting an employee to spray the package with a fire extinguisher, authorities said.

The building was temporarily closed as authorities cleared the area.

The sheriff’s bomb squad was called in to make sure the device would not explode before its removal, Haacker said.