Series of Bombing Incidents Rattle Residents of Vallejo

VALLEJO, Calif. — They are used to random killings. They endure the danger of drug dealing in their midst. But a predawn explosion that blasted a hole in the Solano County Courthouse here Thursday has posed an alarming new threat to this gritty city, leaving its 112,000 residents on edge.

The bombing was the latest in a weeklong string of episodes involving explosives in Vallejo, a blue-collar city northeast of San Francisco. No one has been injured in the blasts, but the reality of a bomber loose in town has left the collective nerves badly frayed.

Does someone bear a grudge against Vallejo? Which building or person might be next? Is it safe to go out?

These are questions that police and bomb specialists cannot yet answer. Clues suggest the bombings are linked, but no arrests have been made and no motive unearthed.

“We don’t know what’s going on,” said Vallejo Mayor Gloria Exline, her jitters audible in her voice. “Does somebody have something against us, or is it a freak thing like the Unabomber? We just don’t know.”

The mystery began unfolding Saturday, when two children found a backpack full of dynamite in the ivy outside the city’s John F. Kennedy Library. After fiddling with wires coming out of the pack, the kids--ages 10 and 14--got smart and alerted a security guard, who called police.

Before a technician dismantled the device, a restaurant, post office and City Hall, all nearby, were evacuated, and ferry service to the bayside town was delayed. The bomb consisted of 30 sticks of dynamite rigged to three separate detonators. It was powerful, but not fully armed.

Hours later, a separate bomb proved that it was fully armed, exploding beside a row of ATM machines at a Wells Fargo Bank. The blast--which also involved dynamite--shattered windows, punched a hole in the bank’s exterior wall and damaged the cash machines.

On Monday, a bomb threat against the county courthouse was delivered by telephone. The building was evacuated and searched, but no device was found.

Then came Thursday.

It was a cold, foggy night and Newton Burch--whose one-chair business, Dad’s Barber Shop, is across the street from the courthouse--was asleep when the bomb went off at 3:33 a.m. The explosion blew in his three store windows and knocked pictures off his walls. It also scared him half to death.

“It was a terrible nightmare,” said Burch, 73, who immediately suspected a link with the other bombings and called 911. “It was horrible. It was so loud. . . . Oh my, I tell you, it’s so easy to die, isn’t it?”

Thursday’s bomb--crude but powerful--gouged a three-foot-wide chunk in the courthouse wall. It shattered 22 of the building’s windows and was felt blocks away, damaging four businesses on nearby streets. The courthouse, which has about 100 employees, was closed for the day.

Investigators said the bomb was hidden in the bushes in front of the two-story building. A wire trailed from the blast site, across a lawn and into an alley. A 12-volt car battery was at the end of the wire but not attached, and its role in the blast was unclear.

“The wire was not hooked to anything,” said Dave Robinson, a spokesman for the Solano County Sheriff’s Department. “There was no [apparent] detonation device.”

Wearing gloves, explosives experts combed the scene for bomb fragments and other clues Thursday, hoping to crack a mystery that has a city obsessed.

Lateefah Cusseaux hopes they come up with some answers--and quick. She does not want to live in a place where worry haunts her every step.

“I keep hearing about [the bombs],” said Cusseaux, 21, who works for a car rental agency in town. “The library? If that would have blown up, people could have been hurt and the debris would have hit my apartment.

“Who knows what will happen next?”

Lorie Augustine wonders the same thing. She lives down the block from the courthouse and was within earshot of Thursday’s loud boom.

“It’s hitting public places,” Augustine said. “You’re scared if you go out.”

While Vallejo is known as a tough town with a fair share of violent crime, residents said the idea of a mysterious bomber in their midst is a new, more compelling danger. Bombings are unpredictable. How does one stay out of their path?

“We have lived through drug people shooting each other in the head, but not this,” said John, a Vallejo resident of 22 years who declined to give his last name. “They bombed the courthouse. My God, they bombed my bank. . . . If you can’t go to the courthouse and the bank, where can you go?”

Charles Barnett, arson and bomb supervisor for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in San Francisco, leads a team of investigators hoping to unravel the mystery and put the people of Vallejo at ease.

On Thursday, there were some hopeful signs. Police interviewed a witness to the courthouse bombing, and also released a photograph of a suspect taken by a Wells Fargo security camera just before the bomb there went off. The computer-enhanced photo shows the face of a man in a baseball cap and Windbreaker, crouching in front of an ATM.

“We believe this is the subject placing the bomb at the Wells Fargo Bank,” said Police Lt. Ron Jackson.

As for the bombs, Barnett said there were similarities in design among the three devices. But only lab tests, he said, will prove a definitive link. Also under investigation is an explosion of a firecracker-type device in a residential neighborhood Wednesday night. Its source is unknown, and no damage was reported.

Barnett said the courthouse bomb could have been built by anyone with “common blasting knowledge.” Larry Baggett, a former bomb squad member with the Los Angeles Police Department, agreed and said that in his opinion, the wire revealed how the bomb was set off.

“That tells you everything you wanted to know,” he said. “Whoever planted it put his device down and undid the firing line and ran back to wherever he had cover and . . . touched the two ends of the battery and made his escape,” Baggett said. Materials for such a bomb are readily available, he said.

As investigators prowled for evidence Thursday, a telephoned threat of another bomb prompted the evacuation of the county’s other courthouse, in Fairfield, and the Sheriff’s Department. Both courthouses were expected to reopen today.

La Ganga reported from Vallejo and Warren from Sacramento. Times staff writer Mark Gladstone in Sacramento contributed to this story.