Bomb Found at Middle School Safely Detonated

The sheriff’s bomb squad Monday detonated an explosive device found hanging from a classroom doorknob at Rosemont Middle School--the first live bomb discovered in a Los Angeles-area school in memory.

“It could have inflicted injuries or deaths,” Deputy Bob Killeen, a department spokesman, said. “We are very lucky that someone found it and called us immediately. They didn’t play around with it.”

There were no injuries. The bomb made a small dent and scorch mark on the metal doorknob plate when it was exploded with a remote control device from the bomb squad van.

Assistant Principal Ron Sowers noticed the suspicious device when he showed up for work about 7:30 a.m. to investigate a report that vandals had shattered a school window during the weekend, said Vic Pallos, a spokesman for the Glendale Unified School District.

Pallos said it was the first bomb ever discovered on a campus of the Glendale public school system, which has 30,000 students in 28 schools.

Over the past five years there were five “prank” incidents involving fake bombs, he said, but “We never had a live device.”

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District said that although there have been a number of bomb scares, school district police said there is no memory of a live explosive device ever being discovered in a Los Angeles public school.

Officer Eduardo Funes of the Los Angeles Police Department said the LAPD bomb squad has not been called to detonate a live bomb in a school for at least 27 years. A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s bomb squad said that although it would take days to check the records, there is no memory of any such incident in the department anywhere in Los Angeles County.

The bomb discovered hanging from the doorknob of room 203 of the math building Monday was “a couple of sealed cartridges, similar to pellet gun canisters, strapped together with wires hanging out from them,” said Lt. Gerry Carrigan of the sheriff’s Crescenta Valley station.

A pellet gun--which is often powered by pressurized steel capsules of CO2 gas--was apparently used to shoot holes in a glass window of the adjacent room 204 in the same building, Carrigan said. Deputies have not determined whether the vandalism and the bomb were related, he said.

The 1,200 students and 65 teachers spent four hours on the athletic field while deputies detonated the device.

Mike Reddin, 12, a seventh-grader, said he had “a great time” on the field, where they were given free doughnuts and juice, and spent most of the time playing and singing.

“We were cool but our teachers panicked,” he said. “We were asked to stay in groups. I heard some of the students saying ‘the school is going to blow up.’ ”

Concerned parents rushed to the school.

“I got very scared,” said Anahit Simonian, a preschool teacher whose son, Arbo, is an eighth-grader.

Carol Covey, whose daughter Dawn, 13, called her about 10 a.m. and “said there’s a bomb scare,” said she had moved to La Crescenta because she thought of it as a quiet, peaceful area.

A visibly upset Jenny Ortega, who lives close to the school, rushed over about 10:30 to take her daughter Jessie, 14, an eighth-grader, home with her.

Jessie said the students were directed to the athletic field as soon as they arrived at the school. “We never went to the classrooms. We had helicopters and police cars everywhere. They said there’s a bomb in room 203, in Ms. Reynolds’ math class.”

Jenny Ortega said she will probably keep Jessie home for the rest of the week. “I don’t like this. I am still panicking,” she said. “I thought it could happen only in L.A.”