By Emily Alpert
Gilroy
– A simple garlic container, rigged as a bomb, landed in Rucker
School’s playground Tuesday afternoon, shutting down the elementary
school. Firefighters and sheriffs cordoned off Santa Clara Avenue
with yellow tape and awaited the FBI-trained county bomb squad.
Gilroy – A simple garlic container, rigged as a bomb, landed in Rucker School’s playground Tuesday afternoon, shutting down the elementary school. Firefighters and sheriffs cordoned off Santa Clara Avenue with yellow tape and awaited the FBI-trained county bomb squad.
The homemade bomb had already exploded once – around 1:15pm, likely to the east of the school – when it turned up on Rucker’s playground, but sheriffs weren’t going to take any chances. Even an old explosive can be unstable, sheriffs said.
“The bomb squad takes this seriously,” said Lt. Dale Unger. “They’ve seen the hands in jars, people who’ve had their hands blown off.”
About 1:15pm, a first- and second-grade teacher heard a loud bang and saw a dark plume of smoke rising east of the school. At the time, she told sheriffs, she thought it was nothing – maybe fireworks.
Thirty-five minutes later, a strange, soot-blackened device was brought to the principal’s office: a Safeway garlic shaker, drilled with a fuse and packed with black powder. A janitor found the object in the middle of the playground, sheriff’s deputies said.
It was as destructive, said Unger, as half a stick of dynamite. If detonated again, it could have caused serious bodily injury, spewing flames at people and buildings.
Principal Barb Keesaw called Deputy Rich Rutman, who often patrols the school. Rutman called the bomb squad, who advised them to shut down the school. Teachers shepherded the school’s nearly 500 children toward the central courtyard, then loaded them onto buses at the school’s east end. Sheriffs re-routed curious parents eastward to a safe pick-up spot.
“It occurred so close to the end of school that there was no early release,” Keesaw said. She praised the calm bearing and responsiveness of her staff, and the support offered by Superintendent Edwin Diaz at the site. “We just moved them straight to parent pick-up.”
Ten minutes later, the California Department of Forestry and South Santa Clara County Fire Department arrived at the scene, along with an arson investigator. If the bomb went off, and the building ignited, CDF Capt. Tim Main explained, firefighters would snuff the flames at a safe range.
At 3:30pm, the two-man bomb squad arrived, suited up, and walked into the main office, where the explosive had been moved by staff. From a distance, the men shot off the top of the device, to see what it contained, said Deputy Serg Palanov.
“It’s not something you want to rush,” he added.
Minutes later, the squad emerged with the offending device. It looked like a salt shaker, Palanov said, and it was spent. Relieved teachers and staff returned to campus, smiling, and Keesaw phoned all Rucker parents with the news. Wednesday, staff will gather to discuss safety issues raised by the explosion, then talk with students.
Meanwhile, investigators will question residents east of the school about the explosion. The bomb maker could face felony charges of possession of a destructive device in or near a school, which carries a state prison sentence of two, four or six years.
“If somebody gets convicted,” said Unger, “I’d think doing it on school grounds would make it a lot more serious.”
Emily Alpert covers public safety issues for The Dispatch. She can be reached at 847-7158, or at
ea*****@gi************.com
.
