Front Page  »  

Bomb task force removes device from downtown SLO

September 12, 2013

carThe San Luis Obispo County Bomb Task Force removed a suspicious device from outside a downtown San Luis Obispo business Wednesday morning.

Gardeners working at Obispo Wealth Management on the corner of Chorro and Pacific streets found an object that looked like a metal water bottle with a lit cigarette attached. [KCOY]

“It had a metal screw cap on it with a green wire that was about that long with the end of it stripped and bare, and it was pushed through the middle of a cigarette and the cigarette was lit,” said Christina Coyle of Obispo Wealth Management.

An employee of the financial firm reported the device to the San Luis Obispo Police Department around 10 a.m. Wednesday. Officers responded to the scene, evacuated the street and called the bomb squad.

A bomb task force robot removed the suspicious object from its location and secured it in a containment vessel.

Coyle said the cigarette was no longer lit when the task force arrived.

“It looked like it was supposed to burn down to the wire and then go off, but then it went out before it got to the wire,” Coyle said.

San Luis Obispo police and the bomb squad are still investigating the incident. The police department says it does not know whether the device, which was found on September 11, had any connection to the anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Leaving an implied or a real destructive device is a crime. Police request that anyone with more information about the incident contact the department or Crimestoppers.

 


Loading...
Subjects:     
Related:


7 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

“It had a metal screw cap on it with a green wire that was about that long with the end of it stripped and bare, and it was pushed through the middle of a cigarette and the cigarette was lit,” said Christina Coyle of Obispo Wealth Management.

————————-

Sounds like a pathetic little prank. Just simple products. Cheap. Get them anywhere. Metal cup with top. Piece of wire. Cigarette butt. Metal wire doesn’t burn, it conducts electricity. Cigarrette but was long burned out.


And our police department used it as a opportunity to prove they are needed and the super expensive machinery is needed.


Kind of reminds me of the article where the disgruntled wife pullled up to the nuclear power plant kiosk entrance and threw all her husband’s stuff out of the window including a box. The kiosk bomber? Or just a box of personal belongings? So they called in the bomb squad and went through the same drill.


0

There’s a famous expression you may have heard: “Better safe than sorry.” Think about it.


0

We have dumbed down the populace so much that the average person has no idea that a lit cigarette cannot sent a charge through a wire. And we wonder why they find it so hard to operate their mobile devices and computers.


0

I was thinking the same thing! If it’s a WIRE, who cares if a cig is lit… now if it had a cellphone or old pager attached to it…


0

““It had a metal screw cap on it with a green wire that was about that long with the end of it stripped and bare, and it was pushed through the middle of a cigarette and the cigarette was lit,”


Yup, I was also thinking the same thing and wondering how in the world that the cigarette was going to ignite a stripped wire (or intact and encased for that matter)? I’m glad you all spoke up because I was thinking that I must not be getting it!


0

It depends upon what was attached to the other end of the wire. A wire can conduct heat that could then start something else — such as is used in lighting some older gas appliances. It still sounds iffy but that possibility exists. Or it could just be some moron’s idea of a prank.


0

lmao…mkaney…great point.


0