2 Youths Held in Bombing of Phone Coin Box

Two 17-year-old cousins were arrested Monday after a bomb they allegedly made from common chemicals and batteries blew up a pay phone at Estancia High School.

No one was injured, and school was canceled for the day.

Investigators suspect that the boys blew up the phone to break into the coin box.

“They knew enough about what they were doing to put together a bomb that sheared the phone right off the bracket,” Costa Mesa police Lt. Ron Smith said. “There was a tremendous amount of force.”

The coin box, however, remained intact.

Smith said investigators are looking into a possible connection to an earlier explosion at Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach.

Officers arrested the youths, both high school seniors, at 12:30 a.m. Monday as they tried to leave the high school parking lot in a car, police said. Neighbors had reported gunshots.

In the trunk, police reportedly found batteries and enough chemicals, including rubbing alcohol, for three similar bombs and components for a more powerful explosive device. Police also found bolt cutters and other tools.

“They were taking a big risk. If they had been rear-ended it could have caused death or injury to the drivers of the car and the one who rear-ended them,” Smith said.

The youths were being held at Orange County Juvenile Hall on suspicion of possessing explosives, detonating explosives and burglary.

More than 1,100 students were sent home as they arrived Monday and found police barricades blocking nearby streets.

A bomb-sniffing dog and robots found no other bombs at the school and authorities moved to the suspects’ homes Monday afternoon. At one home in Newport Beach, authorities seized a box of metal tubes they said were part of a detonator and the Army instruction manuals “Unconventional Warfare Devices and Techniques,” “Improved Munitions Handbook” and “Survival” as evidence.

Sgt. Charlie Stumph of the Orange County sheriff’s bomb squad said the chemicals found in the car would commonly be used in school laboratories and available at supply houses that sell to hobbyists.

The chemicals were combined in small, metal cartridges, he said, which indicate the level of sophistication, and danger, involved. “The metal containers are the real danger,” Stumph said. “You get metal fragmenting and flying all over the place.”

Stumph said there has been a steady increase in the number of homemade bombs reported each year.

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Times staff writers Geoff Boucher and Robert Manzano contributed to this story.