The Region - News from Aug. 31, 1987

More than 40 residents of a neighborhood in Paramount were evacuated from their homes for three hours Sunday after sheriff’s deputies found a homemade bomb in a car driven by a woman apparently bent on suicide. The bomb, described by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy as a “fairly small, low-powered bomb with black powder,� was removed from the car by bomb squad members and detonated without incident about 6 a.m. Sgt. Chris Beattie said that deputies at the Lakewood sheriff’s substation stopped a car driven by a 30-year-old woman about 1:30 a.m. after receiving an anonymous telephone call with information about a potential suicide victim. When deputies checked the woman’s car, at Downey Avenue and Alondra Boulevard, they found the low-yield bomb and a .38-caliber, semiautomatic handgun on the front seat. Beattie said the bomb contained “three small canisters of black powder.�