Several homemade chemical explosives were set off in a Harford County parking lot Sunday morning, with two undetonated devices requiring the bomb squad to deactivate.
An off-duty Harford sheriff?s deputy working security at a nearby Waffle House restaurant heard an explosion about 2 a.m. Sunday and went to investigate, Sheriff?s Office spokeswoman Sgt. Christina Presberry said.
In the parking lot of the Klein?s Supermarket on Riverside Road in Belcamp, the deputy saw that two of the chemical explosives ? sometimes referred to as “bottle bombs” ? had detonated, while two others had not.
TheOffice of the State Fire Marshal was called in and a bomb squad rendered the devices safe, Deputy State Fire Marshal Faron Taylor said.
Suspects have been identified, but no arrests had been made, Taylor said.
The incident was similar to two other “bombings” in late 2006, where chemical explosives were set off outside a shopping center in Edgewood and inside another Klein?s in northern Harford.
Several suspects were arrested in those cases, which turned out to be similar but unrelated.
“There?s a similarity to the devices used here,” Taylor said.
Such devices use a chemical reaction to create a violent expansion of gases to explode their container, splashing anything nearby with dangerous chemicals or plastic shrapnel.
Sunday?s incident did not cause any injuries or property damage, Taylor said.
