Bomb Squad Back At School For Explosive

For the second time in a month, bomb experts have been summoned to Winton Elementary School to defuse explosives found on the school grounds.

Last Friday night, the Spokane bomb squad used its robot to defuse a device that resembled a pipe bomb. The explosive was constructed from a combination of legal and illegal fireworks, said Coeur d’Alene Police Capt. Carl Bergh.

It was a foot long and 1-1/2 inches in diameter. The bomb was wrapped in duct tape and at first looked like a tree branch to the man who found the device on the playground, the police report said.

The man picked it up, became suspicious, put it back on the ground and went to a nearby house and called police.

The bomb had “medium” strength and “could have caused significant damage to property or injury to a person,” the police report said.

A Coeur d’Alene man was charged last week for allegedly leaving a different explosive near Winton school. Barclay D. Bennett, 19, faces a misdemeanor charge of keeping explosives in the city limits.

The charge carries a maximum of six months in jail.

Three hundred children had been released from school an hour before the bomb was found. It was fashioned out of an empty salt container, gunpowder and a fuse encased in duct tape.

The explosive appeared to have been lighted, but didn’t go off. Bennett told police he didn’t make the bomb, but merely added a fuse.

, DataTimes