Local News in Brief : Police Arrest 4 in Park; Find Explosive Devices

Two men and two teen-age boys dressed in camouflage fatigues were arrested Friday after police found them with 10 explosive devices at Chatsworth Park, authorities said Saturday.

Los Angeles police on patrol saw the foursome placing items into a car in a lot at the park about 8:45 p.m., Officer Larry Judd said.

When the officers approached the car, they saw improvised explosive devices in the trunk, Judd said. He said he did not have details about the devices or what the group was doing with them.

The LAPD bomb squad was summoned and defused the 10 devices, Judd said.

The men and the boys, whose identities were not disclosed, were arrested on suspicion of possessing an explosive device, Judd said.

Detectives, who suspect the camouflaged group may have been playing war games in the park, said they were investigating whether the four are linked to the placement of two pipe bombs in mailboxes two weeks earlier in the northern San Fernando Valley.

In those incidents in the early hours of March 19, an explosion destroyed a mailbox in the 18900 block of Muirkirk Drive in Northridge and an unexploded bomb was found in another box in the 13200 block of Constable Avenue in Granada Hills, Lt. John Aggas said shortly afterward. No one was injured.

Aggas said then that police suspected the motive may have been vandalism. Officers found no evidence that the incidents were racial or religious, he said.