San Gabriel Valley : School Evacuated After Device Is Triggered
All 2,000 students at Pasadena High School were sent home early Thursday and U.S. Army ordinance experts were called to the campus after a locksmith trying to re-key the lock of the school’s aging walk-in safe activated an anti-tampering chemical device, authorities said.
The device in the safe door with an unknown chemical was discovered when the locksmith began work shortly before 9 a.m, said Pasadena Unified School District Police Chief Jarado Blue.
The strange device drew bomb disposal and ordinance experts from across Southern California.
“We called the Hazmat people and they said they had never seen anything like it. So we called the Los Angeles County sheriff’s bomb squad and then they told us to call in the Army Ordinance at El Toro,” Blue said. “They’d never seen anything like this. But they know it could contain highly dangerous chemicals so the Army is calling in more ordinance specialists.”
About 200 students in the building where the safe is located were evacuated, before the sheriff’s bomb squad arrived at the East Pasadena campus. All students and staff were sent home around noon.
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