‘Bomb’ at Shopping Mall Turns Out to Be a Fake

Sheriff’s deputies cordoned off a wide swath of a shopping plaza and rerouted traffic Friday before bomb squad investigators determined that a suspected pipe bomb was an elaborate fake.

A passerby noticed the device, described as a bundle of several foot-long pipes capped on both ends, in an alcove on the north side of the Wells Fargo Bank building at El Toro Road and Rockfield Boulevard, Lt. Dick Olson said.

The unidentified passerby called sheriff’s deputies, who then cordoned off the area around the bank.

The bomb squad used an electronically controlled robot with a video camera to study the device. However, an investigator made the determination that it was a hoax when he examined the electronic circuitry of the device, Sheriff’s Sgt. Charles Stumph said.

Stumph said the device “looked very, very real.”

“It looked like a radio-controlled bomb. It had several pipes, a radio antenna coming out of it, and a power source,” he said. “All the elements were there” except for an explosive.

As a precaution, sheriff’s deputies parked county dump trucks between the bank and the shopping center parking lot.

Investigators said they do not know who created the fake bomb or why it was placed near the bank.

An investigation is continuing.