Bomb Squads

They deal with the dangerous, the unpredictable and often the unknown. Their job: to disarm explosive devices while guaranteeing the safety of those around them. Bomb squad technicians are trained police officers, arson investigators and explosive specialists all rolled into one. And lately they've been busier than usual.

Hemet police on Tuesday found a "suspicious device" attached to a city police car, four days after two men were arrested in connection with a series of violent attacks against authorities in the small Riverside County city. The device, which the Sheriff's Department's bomb squad rendered harmless, was found during a routine check of all police cars and could have been attached to the vehicle at any time over the last two months, said Lt. Duane Wisehart. "Investigators believe they have the suspects in these attacks in custody and that this device was simply not discovered until today," Wisehart said in a statement released by Hemet police.

The Sheriff's Department bomb squad, U.S. Marine Corps personnel and Orange police officers were called to a downtown real estate office Tuesday after an agent there found a live military round in a vacant home and brought it to work with her, police said. The bomb squad removed the 75-millimeter "self-propelled military round" from a Century 21 real estate office in the 400 block of East Chapman Avenue. The device was destroyed at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

You could call it the Los Angeles Police Department's version of a Transformer. The Batcat is a 39,000-pound remote-control vehicle that looks like a forklift truck on steroids with a massive telescopic arm. It can grab a vehicle like unsuspecting prey and move it from a densely populated area to a safer location. "We can pick up a large vehicle bomb and move where we want without risk to anyone's life," said LAPD Capt. Horace Frank. "The beauty of this thing is no one needs to get near."

A Vietnam-era military grenade was found along a curbside Thursday afternoon, prompting police to call the bomb squad to remove it, authorities said. But the 40-millimeter grenade--about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and 6 inches long--contained no explosive, said Glendale Police Sgt. Mel Barnes. A resident told police about the grenade in the 900 block of South Brand Boulevard about 3:15 p.m. but left before authorities arrived.

Los Angeles County Fire Department Capt. John Montoya said he was sure Friday that he was about to become the object of another firehouse gag when one of his men interrupted his morning shower at Station 106 in Rolling Hills Estates to announce: "There's a lady in your office and she's got a hand grenade for you." He had heard jokes like this before, Montoya said later Friday. "The guys kid around," Montoya said. "I said to him, 'Yeah, sure. Ha ha ha.' " But the grenade was no joke.

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to expand and reorganize the Police Department's bomb squad in the wake of the deaths of two of its members last year. The council approved by a 10-0 vote an increase in the size of the Firearms and Explosives Section from 12 to 20 and gave the unit $142,202 for new equipment. The council also agreed to create separate bomb and firearms units within the section and to provide officers with improved training.

A homeowner whose friend left a solid block of dynamite, plastic explosives and a detonation cord with him before taking a vacation called Los Angeles police Monday and had the materials removed from his house, authorities said. Officers from the Los Angeles Police Department's bomb squad removed the explosives from a home in the 13700 block of Wyandotte Avenue about 11:30 a.m., said Sgt. Brett Papworth.

OK, so what do a blown movie script, blasted petunia seeds and dead kittens have in common? No, nothing to do with smell, although the script certainly might have stunk. And yes, while it is true that none of the above are readily available at finer department stores--or most anywhere else for that matter--that is not the proper answer either. Give up?

Squat and deceptively awkward-looking, the Andros 5A--a state-of-the-art robot--rode into Camarillo on Monday to show county law enforcement authorities what it can do. In a demonstration before members of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department bomb squad, the three-foot-tall, remote-controlled robot lurched through a range of exercises at the sheriff's shooting range at the Camarillo Airport.

An Army bomb squad leader who served in Iraq is accusing the makers of the Academy Award-nominated movie "The Hurt Locker" of stealing his identity, cheating him out of box-office profits and falsely portraying him as "a reckless, gung-ho war addict." In a federal suit filed Tuesday in New Jersey, Master Sgt. Jeffrey S. Sarver claimed he was the model for the film's protagonist and even coined the title phrase in describing his life detonating improvised explosive devices. The suit accuses screenwriter Mark Boal, director Kathryn Bigelow and others of defamation, invasion of privacy, fraud and other counts.

"The Hurt Locker" has the killer impact of the explosive devices that are the heart of its plot: It simply blows you apart and doesn't bother putting you back together again. Overwhelmingly tense, overflowing with crackling verisimilitude, it's both the film about the war in Iraq that we've been waiting for and the kind of unqualified triumph that's been long expected from director Kathryn Bigelow.

Much has been made of the lack of success -- both at the box office and artistically -- of the topical movies that have come out since the American invasion of Iraq. "The Hurt Locker," a full-tilt action picture directed by Kathryn Bigelow that also ruminates on the psychology of combat, is looking to buck that trend. The people behind the film, which screens today at the Toronto International Film Festival, feel that their picture has some major differences. "The most important distinction that was in our minds is that none of the movies that have come out so far, or were in development when we were in development, were combat movies," said writer Mark Boal.

RICHARD ESPOSITO has the hard edge of a street-smart detective, but all he's armed with is a reporter's notebook. The longtime TV and tabloid cop-shop groupie never fires blanks. In "Bomb Squad: A Year Inside the Nation's Most Exclusive Police Unit," ABC News reporters Esposito and Ted Gerstein go undercover with New York City's death-defusers for a year and hit one bull's-eye after another. They narrate a street saga so visual it could become the pilot for the next "24"-style TV show.

Authorities called in the bomb squad early Tuesday and diverted a flight to Las Vegas after Los Angeles International Airport security screeners found hidden wires and other objects in a body cavity of a Philadelphia-bound passenger. Fadhel Al-Maliki, a 35-year-old Iraqi national living in Atlantic City, N.J., had been flagged by security officials at LAX and was undergoing a secondary "selectee screening" when he set off a metal detector.

Authorities at Long Beach Airport detonated a suspicious package found in a rental car Monday, an airport spokeswoman said. No explosives were found. The investigation prompted airport officials to close the terminal, although people who had already passed through security were allowed to stay inside, airport spokeswoman Sharon Diggs-Jackson said. Airport employees were not evacuated. The airport reopened about two hours after the package was found at 8:30 a.m.

Authorities at Long Beach Airport detonated a suspicious package found in a rental car Monday, an airport spokeswoman said. No explosives were found. The investigation prompted airport officials to close the terminal, although people who had already passed through security were allowed to stay inside, airport spokeswoman Sharon Diggs-Jackson said. Airport employees were not evacuated. The airport reopened about two hours after the package was found at 8:30 a.m.

Det. Paul Robi got the tattoo just days after the terrorist attacks: a large American flag that covers one thick biceps. "I'm prepared to give my life for people I don't know," the bomb squad member and father of four declares matter-of-factly. The LAPD opened a new office for the squad at Los Angeles International Airport two weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks. On Sept.

A bomb squad in Perryopolis blew up a metal pipe that had a battery, wires, rope and an electrical switch, only to discover that it was an eighth-grade science project. "An electromagnetic fishing pole," Allegheny County Bomb Squad Sgt. Robert Clark said, holding what was left of the contraption. A clerk found the device -- made from 3 feet of half-inch metal pipe -- near the greeting cards display at a drugstore.

I got the call just after 7 p.m. Thursday. Lt. Justin Eisenberg from the LAPD bomb squad told me to meet him near Los Angeles International Airport. "We've got a report of a pipe bomb," he said. I fumbled for my keys and notebook, then raced down the Harbor Freeway to the 105 West. But before I take you there: I had spent the earlier part of that day with the bomb squad, which has been run ragged since the London bombings.