Briefcase puts bomb scare into Costa Mesa

Deepa Bharath

COSTA MESA -- A briefcase that looked like it could be a bomb caused a

stir for about an hour Monday afternoon in a commercial area at the

corner of 17th Street and Superior Avenue before a bomb squad robot

determined it was a hoax, officials said.

A Costa Mesa fire engine passing through the 1600 block of Superior

Avenue about 1:45 p.m. spotted the briefcase near a pay phone in front of

the Ramada Inn and stopped to check it out, said Costa Mesa Police Lt.

Dale Birney.

“They noticed it had something that looked like a cell phone charger

on the outside and had wires running inside,” Birney said.

Businesses in the area were evacuated for about an hour, and Superior

Avenue at 17th Street was closed to traffic for more than an hour. The

Orange County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad came in with a

bomb-detecting robot that found the briefcase had no real explosive in

it, Birney said.

Tim Parrish, store manager at a nearby supermarket, said he was glad

the police took the threat seriously.

“It’s always good to take precautions, especially these days,” he

said.

Birney said it is a serious crime to manufacture and place such false

explosive devices in public places where people might panic or get

scared.

“We’ll continue to investigate the case,” he said. “We will send the

device to the [Orange County] crime lab and try to track down who planted

the device.”