Southeast : Exploding Pen Injures Man; Bomb Squad Called to School
A sheriff’s bomb squad rushed to a Pico Rivera adult school Tuesday morning after a pen left in a campus restroom exploded in the face of a snack vendor visiting the school.
The vendor, identified as 25-year-old Robert Asher, suffered minor injuries to the left side of his face after he uncapped the pen about 9:45 a.m, a sheriff’s spokesman said. He said Asher was released from a hospital after being treated for blurred vision and cuts to his left ear and cheek.
No arrests had been made and investigators were still trying to determine how the device was constructed, the spokesman said.
The pen apparently had been placed earlier that morning near sinks in a student restroom at El Rancho Adult School, said Art Narvaez, assistant superintendent of operations for the the city’s school district.
“[The vendor] thought he’d found a pen,” Narvaez said. He added that the campus, which provides mostly vocational and continuing education, has no science laboratory and had never witnessed a similar prank.
School Principal Howard Hogan said staff members did not receive warning of the device or any claims of responsibility.
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