Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Bangs busted for bombs
Emergency workers close D Street to move truck full of potential explosives
By KATHERINE ROSENBERG Staff Writer
VICTORVILLE — It was the call that a bomb specialist never wants to get.
A 500-pound military bomb — capable of destroying everything within a 300-yard radius — was found in the heart of Old Town Tuesday afternoon.
It was the job of three men from the sheriff's Bombs and Arson Detail to deter mine, ever-so carefully, whether the bomb was still active and ready to explode.
Luckily, it wasn't.
But in their search of a truck driven by David S. Bangs, 43, they also found other explosive devices including a hand grenade simulator, officials said.
Bangs was arrested on suspicion of possession of explosive devices, officials said.
"It's not very often that you have a bomb scare in the middle of Victorville. I've been here 18 years and you get little stuff, but nothing of this magnitude," said Deputy James Momjian of the Victorville station.
Momjian spotted the 500-pound dummy bomb when he pulled over Bangs after he made an illegal right turn from the left turn lane of Seventh Street onto D Street, Momjian said.
Bangs' Mazda mini-truck had a registration that expired in 1993 and he was later found to be driving on a suspended license.
Momjian decided to have the vehicle towed, and it was then that he looked in the back of the pickup truck.
"It's actually written right on there, '500 pound bomb.' It's stamped on there and it says it was manufactured in 1975. The cable that attaches to the fins was still there but I could not tell if the detonator was still on it," Momjian said.
Momjian called for other units, including the Bombs and Arson squad and Victorville Fire Department. D Street was reduced to one eastbound lane for about 20 minutes before supervisors decided that they needed to move the bomb to a less congested area.
The Fire Department temporarily closed Highway 18 in both directions as a deputy drove the truck to a private drive off nearby C Street at Eleventh Street near the Victor Valley Memorial Park. That business was then evacuated and the streets were closed off for approximately three blocks in all directions.
The sheriff's Bombs and Arson team arrived around 4:30 p.m. and began inspecting the bomb. A short time later they announced that it was not live but that other explosives had been found.
"They found simulators, hand grenade simulators that are live explosives — they will make a boom," said Detective James Wiebeld, who was overseeing the operation.
More infor mation on the dummy bomb was not immediately available, but officials speculated it might have been dropped from a plane as part of bombing practice.
Bangs was not forthcoming about how he acquired the bomb. Representatives from Fort Irwin were to transport the dummy bomb back to their facility, Wiebeld said.
The other explosives were taken by Bombs and Arson and are to be destroyed, Wiebeld said.
