OAK VIEW : Homemade Bomb Found in Riverbed

A live homemade pipe bomb found by three children in the Ventura River bed was disassembled by Ventura County Sheriff’s bomb squad experts, who returned to the scene Monday to search for clues to who may have built the bomb, officials said.

The juveniles were playing in the river bottom near Oak View on Sunday when they discovered the device and took it home to their parents, said Detective Joe Braga.

“Any time you see a device like that, they shouldn’t be touched and they shouldn’t be handled,” Braga said. “You never know if these things are booby-trapped and it could go off.”

Braga said any fingerprints or other physical evidence were destroyed because so many people had handled the device before investigators were summoned.

But officers returned Monday to search for evidence that other bombs may have been detonated in the area.

The bomb builder “may have been out there building the bombs and exploding them to see what they would do,” Braga said.

The bomb, which measured about seven inches long and four inches thick, was constructed of polyvinyl chloride packed with explosives such as gunpowder and was to be detonated by a fuse, he said.