Police Search for Clues to Bombing : Fountain Valley Blast ‘Anything From Prank to Warning’

Fountain Valley police Friday were searching for a motive, as well as a suspect, in the explosion of a bomb that blew a shallow hole in a concrete landscaping planter about 20 feet from the police station carport Thursday night, minutes before patrol officers headed for their cars.

“It could have been anything from a prank to a warning,� said Detective Dennis Minna about the explosion, which alarmed nearby residents and scattered charred branches and shrubbery about 100 to 150 feet.

During Police Briefing

Police said that no one has called to claim responsibility for the bomb, which was made of a very volatile substance, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad. Fountain Valley police said the bomb possibly was made of dynamite.

No one was injured, but the noise was so loud that the police station was inundated with phone calls from residents several blocks away who thought the explosion was in their backyards, Minna said.

The bomb was placed in a shallow concrete planter 22 feet west and 46 feet north of the police carport’s southern edge, Minna said. It blasted a hole six inches deep and 30 inches wide inside a planter.

The planter is inside the Safeco Insurance Co. parking lot, adjacent to the police parking area. But Minna said the bomb apparently was directed at the police facility, not the insurance company building, which was about 150 feet away from the blast.

When the bomb exploded at 10:20 p.m., the evening shift of patrol officers were still being briefed inside the station, he said.

The officers usually finish their briefing between 10:15 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., and it is “a very good possibility� that the bomb was timed to go off when they emerged, he said. Or, he said, perhaps the bomb was timed so that “officers were inside to hear it.�

However, Minna said, “there more than likely would not have been major damage� or injury if the bomb had exploded when officers were getting into their cars, although they would have been exposed to the “excruciating� noise of the blast, on the other side of the carport wall.

“We don’t know the intent,� Minna said. “It’s unknown whether they (the perpetrators) wanted to see what kind of damage they could do to a planter or what.�

However, police are investigating whether any “unsatisfied customers�--criminals or others unhappy with the Police Department --�have shown any animosity or made threats to officers,� Minna said. No one saw suspects in the area shortly before the blast, he said.

The officers have not been intimidated by the explosion “but it has heightened awareness,� the detective said, adding that patrols will be increased in the area.

Charlie Stumph, an investigator with the sheriff’s hazardous devices squad, said the bomb was lit by a simple fuse and had no timing device. But it would “take some familiarity with explosives� to obtain the material, he said.

Minna said the detonation of the bomb “was substantially more sophisticated than holding a firecracker and lighting it . . .

“Whoever set this knew a little bit about it and its destructive capabilities. But how much, we can’t say for certain. They may have underestimated it or overestimated it,� Minna said.

The detective said it is a misdemeanor to possess a destructive device and a felony to possess one in or near a public building.