Youth Arrested After Bomb Threat at School

A San Clemente High School student was arrested Tuesday after school officials received a bomb threat and found two suspicious devices, authorities said.

One of the devices was a bottle filled with household chemicals with a firecracker attached as an apparent detonator, Sheriff’s Lt. Charles Walters said. The other was harmless.

A 15-year-old boy was arrested and two other youths were being questioned, he said.

At 8:30 a.m., a caller told an administrator that “there were bombs scheduled to go off at the end of first period,” which would have been about 10 a.m., said Cheryl Marty, spokeswoman for the Capistrano Unified School District.

Authorities called sheriff’s deputies and firefighters, who, along with a group of school employees, fanned out to search the school, located in the 700 block of Avenida Pico, Marty said.

“They did a campus sweep, looking for things that were unusual. They checked out everything,” Marty said. “They found an item that was basically Play-Doh with some wires on the outside. That was fake. Then there was another item--a bottle filled with a suspicious fluid--in a boys’ restroom stall.”

Administrators did not evacuate the school, but held a meeting to notify teachers of the bomb threat.

“Our first concern was safety for the students,” Marty said. “In consulting with the sheriff’s [deputies], we felt that it would be better for the students to keep them in the classroom, in a safe environment.”

The boy who was arrested could face charges of possessing and constructing an explosive device and reporting a bomb threat, officials said.