The State - News from May 23, 1988

A shopping center in the East Bay community of Pleasant Hill was closed for about three hours and dozens of businesses were evacuated after police found seven pipe bombs and a small cache of weapons inside a pickup truck, authorities said. Michael Reno, 31, of Clayton was booked for investigation of possession of explosive devices and illegal firearms after an officer who had stopped him for a mechanical violation saw a pipe bomb and a sawed-off shotgun on the front seat of his truck, police said. The shotgun was loaded, police said, and officers also found seven explosive devices, two rifles and survival equipment. The UC Berkeley police bomb squad detonated some of the pipe bombs in the Gregory Village Shopping Center’s parking lot and defused others.