Bomb in Mall Proves to Be Phony

Police evacuated more than 500 shoppers from the Orange Mall on Sunday evening when a maintenance worker reported that he found an explosive device in a restroom. The device turned out to be a fake.

The Orange County Sheriff’s bomb squad approached the device with a robot and determined that it did not contain any explosive material. But they said the device was made to look like a bomb, and it took two hours of delicate work before the device was found to be bogus.

Police arrested a 39-year-old man from Orange on suspicion of placing a false bomb in a public place but he was later released. They said they did not know the motive for the incident and that the investigation was continuing.

“There’s no question what it was made to look like,” said Orange Police Lt. Trey Sirks. “There were things in the device made to look like dynamite. Fortunately, it wasn’t dynamite.”

Police first received a call about the device about 6 p.m., when a maintenance worker spotted it in a restroom at the mall, located in the 2300 block of North Tustin Boulevard. By the time police arrived, Sirks said, a “passerby shopper” had moved the device to the main information desk in the center of the mall and left it on the counter.

He said it is unknown whether the shopper was connected to the plot. By 6:30 p.m., Sirks said, police had evacuated everyone in the mall, and the bomb squad arrived on the scene.

Sirks said Irvine was identified by witnesses as a man who was carrying the device at the mall. He said there were no threats involved in the incident. Police were searching Irvine’s home late Sunday night.

Sirks said a bomb threat was made by telephone to the mall last week. Police searched the mall and found nothing. Sirks said it is not known whether the two incidents are related.