Bomb Squad Detonates Device Found Under Car Hood

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA —  A pipe bomb tucked beneath the hood of parked car in a residential neighborhood was safely detonated Friday by the Orange County Sheriff’s bomb squad and may have been part of a gang dispute, officials said.

The bomb was discovered about 8 a.m. in the engine of a black Honda Civic parked along the curb of Santa Teresa, a quiet cul de sac off of Alicia Parkway, according to sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Ron Wilkerson.

About noon, bomb squad officers used a robot to move the bomb to a nearby hillside for safe detonation.

It was a “somewhat sophisticated” pipe bomb, Wilkerson said.

“The detonation device was under one tire, so I surmise that moving the car would have triggered the bomb,” Wilkerson said. “It could have caused very serious injury, if not death.”

An 18-year-old discovered the bomb and told police it may have been left by some rivals who confronted him two months ago at Palace Park in Irvine, Wilkerson said.

“They threatened him, they threatened to put a bomb in his car,” Wilkerson said.

Sean La, who watched the bomb squad from a nearby sidewalk and spoke with police, identified himself as the person who found the explosive.

La said he had chased three men he saw outside his home the night before, but had returned to bed without checking the Honda, which belongs to a friend.

Two windows of the car were shattered Friday morning when La woke up, and he said he had trouble starting the engine. A friend then noticed wires leading to a device beneath a front tire, and the pair opened the hood to discover the cylindrical device.

“I said, ‘That doesn’t look familiar,’ ” La said. “I thought it was fake. It didn’t go off when I started the car.”