Pipe Bomb

A man in Carroll County was checking his mailbox Wednesday afternoon when he discovered a pipe bomb, the Office of the State Fire Marshal said. The man was not injured. The mailbox was described as "rural," in the 3800 block of McMullen Road in Taneytown, the fire marshal said. The home's owner, James A. Sandel, found the bomb about 4:15 p.m. and called 911. The bomb was disposed of, and McMullen Road was closed for about five hours. Anyone with information about who placed the bomb in the mailbox is asked to contact the Office of the State Fire Marshal at 410-859-7152.

A man in Carroll County was checking his mailbox Wednesday afternoon when he discovered a pipe bomb, the Office of the State Fire Marshal said. The man was not injured. The mailbox was described as "rural," in the 3800 block of McMullen Road in Taneytown, the fire marshal said. The home's owner, James A. Sandel, found the bomb about 4:15 p.m. and called 911. The bomb was disposed of, and McMullen Road was closed for about five hours. Anyone with information about who placed the bomb in the mailbox is asked to contact the Office of the State Fire Marshal at 410-859-7152.

A mailman emptying a mailbox in Dundalk yesterday found an unexploded pipe bomb inside, Baltimore County police said.The bomb was discovered on the mailman's regular round about noon as he was emptying the box at Mornington and Sollers Point roads.The county's bomb squad removed the device, which was encased in plastic plumber's tubing, and detonated it in an open field, police said. The remains of the bomb were turned over to the U.S. Postal Service, which will investigate the incident.

Driver is arrested for fleeing after hitting Essex pedestrian Baltimore County police arrested the driver of a Jeep who sped off after hitting a pedestrian Tuesday in Essex. Police made the arrest shortly after the man hit a person attempting to cross Eastern Boulevard at the intersection of Wiltshire Road about 12:30 p.m. The pedestrian was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Police have not released identifications of the pedestrian or the driver. - Brent Jones Shooting caught on cameras leads to woman's conviction Officers monitoring Citiwatch surveillance cameras caught a 2007 shooting as it happened, leading Baltimore police to nab the shooter - 28-year-old Keah Wooden - within minutes after she fired the gun. The city State's Attorney's Office released the video footage Tuesday, saying it led to Wooden's conviction last week in Circuit Court on assault, handgun and reckless endangerment charges.

A mailbox on the lawn of a Columbia home was blown apart Thursday byan apparent pipe bomb, but no one was injured, county police said.The mailbox, in the 6600 block of Mohawk Court, blew up at about 8:30 p.m., splitting its support pole and sending debris up to 35 feet away, said Sgt. Gary L. Gardner, a county police spokesman.Police said the home was unoccupied at the time of the explosion,which was heard by neighbors.On Tuesday, police arrested three teen-agers in a series of recent explosions believed to have been caused by pipe bombs and other explosives.

A pipe bomb exploded early yesterday in a North Linthicum industrial park, causing minor damage to the office of an alarm service, county fire officials said.Investigators said the 5:18 a.m. explosion damaged the roof of the Wells Fargo Alarm Services office in the 800 block of Barkwood Court, in the Patapsco Industrial Park. No one was hurt. The park is off Nursery Road west of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

Police believe a pipe bomb caused the destruction of a U.S. Postal Service mailbox in Odenton on Saturday.The explosion occurred at 12:32 a.m. at Chapel Gate Drive and Waugh Chapel Road.No one was injured by the blast.The county fire marshal's office is investigating the incident.POLICE LOG* Hanover: Dwayne Lamont Simms, 30, of Race Road, was arrested Saturday by Anne Arundel County deputy sheriffs on charges that he failed to appear in court and violated his probation on a charge of possession of a controlled dangerous substance.

The discovery of a pipe bomb led to the evacuation of more than 40 trailers in a mobile home park in Edgewood yesterday afternoon, state police reported.Gary Capello told police he discovered a plastic garbage bag containing the homemade explosive device while mowing his lawn at the Bauers Mobile Home Park about 3 p.m., authorities said.State police bomb technicians defused it shortly before 6 p.m., and the residents were allowed to return. The incident remained under investigation last night.

A state fire marshal robot fired a bullet into a pipe found on the side of a Herald Harbor bar Wednesday in an attempt to defuse what police and firefighters thought was a pipe bomb, county police said.When the device did not explode, a bomb technician examined it and determined it was a crack cocaine pipe.The incident caused emergency workers to evacuate the bar and a house directly across the street and shut down the single road in and out of Herald Harbor -- which has about 750 homes -- from about 3: 30 p.m. until about 6 p.m.The incident began about 2: 30 p.m. when Lawrence P. Arelland, an employee of the Herald Harbor Inn in the 400 block of Herald Harbor Road, notified the Herald Harbor fire station that he thought a pipe bomb was on the side of the bar.Firefighters agreed that the 12-inch cylindrical object wrapped in black electrical tape looked like a pipe bomb and called police and the state fire marshal's office.

The state fire marshal's office is trying to determine who set off a pipe bomb today in Edgewood that damaged two vehicles in a residential area.Residents in the 1700 block of Horseshoe Lane in the Edgewater Village section heard an explosion at about 3:30 a.m., said Bob Thomas, deputy chief of the fire marshal's office.He said the explosion, which caused no injuries, did about $3,000 in damage to a 1988 Jeep parked in the 1700 block of Horseshoe Lane. A late-model Ford Thunderbird parked nearby also was damaged, but Thomas said he could not estimate the extent of the damage.

Dallas Jermaine Smith, a 22-year-old with an FBI file, was found guilty Monday of having an explosive device and attempting to disarm a police officer after a pipe bomb was discovered in his backpack last year while he was standing near the University of Maryland BioPark. He was sentenced to two concurrent 20-year prison terms, with all but eight years of each suspended, and given a 13-month credit for time served. Smith's attorney had argued to have the evidence suppressed, claiming police had no right to stop or search his client.

Dallas Jermaine Smith was the kind of kid who read the dictionary cover to cover - encyclopedia, too. He could be a "nuclear scientist" if he wanted, his dad told a police investigator. He can dismantle and rebuild a computer in no time, and he is his former foster mom's favorite ward. She called him "very special" in court documents. But those records also show him to be a boy who built 21 pipe bombs by the time he was 13, when he detonated one in his mother's Temple Hills apartment, perhaps practice for the Los Angeles federal complex his personal journal said he wanted to target, according to FBI records from 2000.

Man indicted in killing of Hamm's stepdaughter The man accused of killing the former city police commissioner's stepdaughter was indicted yesterday by a Baltimore grand jury on first-degree murder charges, according to the city state's attorney's office. Joseph Antonio Bonds, 35, of the 3500 block of W. Garrison Ave., is accused of assaulting and killing Nicole Sesker, the 39-year-old stepdaughter of Leonard D. Hamm. Court documents say Sesker died of blunt-force head injuries and was strangled.

YITZHAR, West Bank - A pipe bomb that exploded late last night outside the Jerusalem home of Zeev Sternhell, a Hebrew University professor, left him slightly wounded and created only a minor stir in a nation that routinely experiences violence on a much larger scale. But Sternhell was noted for his impassioned criticism of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, once suggesting that Palestinians "would be wise to concentrate their struggle against the settlements." And the authorities found fliers near his home offering nearly $300,000 to anyone who kills a member of Peace Now, a left-wing Israeli advocacy group, leading them to suspect that militant Israeli settlers or their supporters were behind the attack.

Several pipe bombs were safely detonated by Baltimore County police yesterday after being found yesterday afternoon in a swampy area in Essex by two men using metal detectors. There were no injuries or property damage. Two men in their mid-20s, one from Port Deposit in Cecil County and the other from Joppatowne in Harford County, were using a metal detector in woods off Bird River Road in Essex about 3:40 p.m. when they came upon a rusty, partially submerged military ammunition box that contained several pipe bombs, black powder, detonating cord and what appeared to be pieces of metal used to fill the bombs, said Officer Jeffrey Fuller of the White Marsh Precinct.

GREENBELT -- A Prince George's County man who was so upset by the idea of terminating pregnancies that he plotted to blow up a Maryland abortion clinic and shoot people inside received a five-year prison sentence yesterday in federal court. The proceeding in U.S. District Court here marked the end of the case for Robert F. Weiler Jr., 26, of Forestville, whose erratic behavior so alarmed his parents that they tipped off authorities this summer. "We must continue to act quickly against anyone who plots to murder doctors or bomb abortion clinics," Rod J. Rosenstein, the Maryland U.S. attorney, said in a statement.

The Anne Arundel County landfill in Millersville was closed for four hours yesterday while fire officials investigated what appeared to be a PVC pipe bomb, but the pipe turned out to contain no explosives.People doing court-ordered community service at the landfill found the device in a recycling drop-off area. Police were notified at 9: 25 a.m.County officials said the area, but not the entire landfill, was evacuated while the state fire marshal's office checked out the pipe and determined it was not an explosive device.

An Essex woman who likes to keep a neighborhood playground clean will be a little more careful after finding a pipe bomb there Friday night.Carol Monks was walking her two dogs, Coco and Grizzly, about 11 p.m. when she discovered a 12-inch length of white plastic pipe in the playground near the Country Ridge Shopping Center a half-block from her home."

A would-be abortion clinic bomber admitted his guilt in a federal court in Greenbelt yesterday as part of an agreement that could send him to prison for five years. Robert F. Weiler Jr., 25, of Forestville pleaded guilty to possessing a pipe bomb, being a felon in possession of a firearm and attempting to destroy or damage an abortion clinic. Agents arrested Weiler at a rest stop in Western Maryland with a loaded Smith & Wesson .40-caliber handgun. He had been prohibited from possessing a gun after a 2003 conviction in Utah state court for obstructing police.