Long Beach Plaza Evacuated in Bomb Scare : Shopping: Phony device is found in bathroom near food court. Series of seven incidents in Los Angeles area has cost merchants thousands of dollars since Dec. 1.

A section of Long Beach Plaza was evacuated Wednesday after a suspicious package was discovered--the seventh time a shopping mall has been emptied by a bomb threat in the Southland since the beginning of December.

Authorities said the incidents represent the first recorded series of bomb threats against malls. No bombs were found in any of the cases. Most of the threats were telephone calls placed to law enforcement authorities or to the malls. In two cases--Long Beach Plaza and South Bay Pavilion in Carson--packages were found without a phone call.

The threats at the height of the holiday shopping season have caused mass evacuations--including the dispersal of 50,000 shoppers from the Glendale Galleria last week--costing merchants hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales.

Long Beach Plaza was evacuated after a suspicious package was discovered in a second-floor bathroom near the mall’s food court, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman said. The package turned out to be a box with a wire sticking out of it that was mistaken for a possible explosive device, the spokesman said.

The bomb scares began Dec. 1, when a device believed to be a pipe bomb was found in a restroom at the Carson Mall. Telephoned threats followed at the Glendale Galleria, Santa Anita Fashion Park in Arcadia, Brea Mall, Westside Pavilion and the Beverly Center on the Westside.

Some authorities have suggested that the same person or group may be responsible. Others said some may be copycat crimes.

“I think whoever is doing it likes to see the evacuations,” said Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad Lt. Steven Allen. “Either that or somebody could have a grudge against a shopping organization.”

Bomb experts say the culprit could fit a number of psychological profiles, ranging from someone who is simply bored and enjoys watching the chaos the threats stir up to a psychotic individual focused on an unknown objective.

Authorities have no choice but to seriously evaluate each of the threats, said Thomas Strentz, a retired agent who worked with the FBI’s behavioral science unit.

Strentz said attention should be paid to the possibility of copycat crimes. “People (who make such threats) tend to be very suggestible,” he said.

Authorities find the trend disturbing, particularly because in one incident a fake device, which closely resembled a bomb, was recovered.

“Obviously that’s somebody that has done a lot more work than somebody who has just picked up the phone and called in a threat,” Strentz said. “With that kind of personality you need to worry about escalation.”

The Carson Mall was evacuated for several hours earlier this month. Authorities later said the device that was found was similar to a pipe bomb in every way except that it lacked explosives.

The Dec. 14 bomb scare at the Glendale Galleria forced the evacuation of shoppers and merchants for more than seven hours. Three fake bombs--consisting of elaborately wrapped five-pound sacks of flour--were recovered inside three restrooms.

One day later, two more threats were made against malls, one at the Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles, which was not evacuated, and the other at the Santa Anita Fashion Park mall, which was evacuated but no bomb was found.

The next Saturday, hundreds of shoppers were evacuated from the Brea Mall in Orange County after authorities received an anonymous bomb threat that turned out to be a hoax. The next evening, two stores at the Beverly Center were temporarily evacuated after separate and apparently unrelated bomb threats were made. Again, no devices were found.

Anticipating problems late last week, Allen of the LAPD said, officials in his department huddled to try to determine which malls in the LAPD’s 18 police divisions might be targeted next for a bomb threat.

Police officers assigned to foot beats at malls in three divisions held meetings with mall security guards and discussed the threats that been received and where the devices were discovered.

In another incident, the Moreno Valley Mall east of Riverside was evacuated Wednesday after more than 40 holiday shoppers and employees were made ill by fumes. On Tuesday night, portions of the mall were evacuated after similar complaints.

Riverside County Fire Department Capt. Richard Egerman said the source and identity of the chemicals were unknown, “and we’re calling it an unidentified irritant.” Some shoppers said the odor smelled like pepper.

Egerman said authorities believed that Wednesday’s noxious fumes were residual odors from the previous incident, and not a separate episode. The mall reopened four hours later.

Times correspondent Geoffrey Mohan and Times staff writer Tom Gorman contributed to this story.