Police Detonate Object on Bus That Looks Like Bomb

Los Angeles police bomb experts Thursday detonated an object in Sherman Oaks that apparently had been assembled to look like a bomb and was left on a Metro bus, possibly just to cause fright, authorities said.

A Metro bus driver found a metallic object with duct tape on it on a seat at about 9:20 p.m. Thursday, near Ventura and Sepulveda boulevards, said Sgt. Sergio Flores of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Transit Services Bureau.

"The driver believed it could be an explosive, and we were called and set up a containment area about a block in each direction to keep cars and pedestrians from coming by," Flores said. "The bomb squad was called in and they took the item off the bus and used a charge to break it up."

The scene was cleared by 11:30 p.m. Thursday, and the bus was
returned to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Flores said.

The commanding officer at the scene told a camera crew that the device, discovered by a passenger who alerted the driver, had been made to look like a bomb to scare people.

"It could have been an intentional bomb scare, made to look like a bomb and scare people," Flores said.

A search for a suspect was under way.

The incident came the same day that a bomb scare resulted in the brief evacuation of a U.S. post office at Magnolia Boulevard and Kester Avenue in Sherman Oaks. In that incident, someone called to say a bomb was planted in the building. The police bomb squad searched the post office but found no bomb.

—City News Service