Firefighters examine a large object lodged in the roof of a home neighboring the the Chabad House Lubevitch in Santa Monica.
I, and many in Santa Monica, had an interesting morning this Thursday. What was initially thought to be a bomb of some sort was found lodged in the roof of a home neighboring the Chabad House Lubevitch following an early morning explosion, causing the authorities, including the FBI, to swarm in and evacuate around 100 people from the area and rope off a two block radius. When I arrived it seemed there was no way to get a clear view of the scene, with the house at the center of the widely roped off area and the police had set up a media staging area far from the scene. Not content to sit there and wait, I starting hiking around the perimeter of the evacuation zone until I finally found myself with a slight view of the building, but no view of the roof. I then headed back the other way and happened to look down an alley right as a police officer was walking on the neighboring roof. I stopped in my tracks and, looking closer, realized that I could see the device sticking out of the roof a few feet from where he stood. I was soon joined by an LA Times photographer and, for awhile we had the only view of the scene other than those from the numerous helicopters hovering above. We were curious how it could be a bomb with police, firefighters and even someone from the gas company, walking so close to it and even touching it. We soon received confirmation that it wasn’t a bomb when a fireman came over and told us that it appeared to be a pipe stuck into a large block of cement and that the explosion had been caused by an agent someone must have applied to the cement to soften it so it could be removed from the ground without the aid of jackhammer. The pressure had somehow built up and launched the thing up in the air, where it ricocheted off the neighboring Chabad House (note the hole on the bottom right) and landed on the neighboring home. Seemed odd, especially when we found out the entire thing weighed 300 lbs. – must have been some explosion! – but that was what they thought. After safely removing it from the roof, which required a team of firemen and an large axe – we all soon cleared out.
The next day I’m reading the news and see a headline regarding a suspect in the Santa Monica synagogue bombing. My first thought was “Again!?” But upon reading it I realized that after further inspection of the scene it was now thought that it WAS in fact a bomb of some sort that was detonated early that morning, launching the cement block. The suspect turns out to be a homeless man who was known to frequent Jewish centers in the area looking for handouts. Apparently, the suspect is still at large as of this afternoon and no motive is yet known. A brief article about that here. Kind of scary, but given the approach taken, I can’t imagine what he was trying to accomplish other than to scare people. I’m interested to see how this turns out.
