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T.O. police close highway to transport explosives
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| Chris Allen |
CTV.ca News Staff
Toronto police have shut down part of a key highway in the city to transport several improvised explosive devices found in a vehicle.
Police say the bombs are linked to the arrest of a 37-year-old man taken into custody Thursday night. The man is the subject of an ongoing investigation into letter bombs mailed to two residences in Toronto and one in Guelph.
Police have not said how many bombs are involved.
The bombs were located in the trunk of a car at a gas station near Overlea Boulevard near Thorncliffe Park Road.
CTV Toronto helicopter footage showed a convoy of bomb squad, police, fire and ambulance vehicles heading south on the Don Valley Parkway to the Leslie Spit, where the bomb squad will examine the explosives and possibly detonate them.
Southbound lanes of the DVP were closed while northbound lanes appeared to still be open.
Deputy Police Chief Tony Warr told The Canadian Press that bridges over the highway, which runs from the Gardiner Expressway north to Highway 401, have also been closed.
He said police believe the three letter bomb incidents and the explosives found in the vehicle, are linked.
The motive behind the letter bombs appears to be personal between the suspect and the recipients, Warr said.
Police have identified the man arrested on Thursday night as Adel Arnaout.
Arnaoult has been charged with:
Three counts of attempted murder;
Three counts of intending to cause explosion;
One count of possessing explosives for unlawful purposes.
Toronto police recently asked the public to closely scrutinize any suspicious packages they received in the mail after two letter bombs were received by city residents.
On Aug. 19, a real estate lawyer living in the city's Sheppard Avenue and Yonge Street area received an envelope that smelled of petroleum. The lawyer alerted police and the package was detonated safely.
About a week earlier, a resident of the city's east end, near Victoria Park Avenue and Lawrence Avenue East, received a bubble-wrapped envelope that also contained a petroleum-like liquid. A male resident was injured when he tried to open the package and it exploded in his hands.
Both packages were 21.6 cm by 27.9 cm and each had properly addressed courier receipts attached. They were also both rigged to explode when opened. The courier company has said it did not send the packages.
A third package was mailed to a residence of Guelph.
With a report from CTV Toronto's Jim Junkin
Toronto Police Service's Explosive Disposal Unit transports the devices as seen from the CTV News helicopter on Friday, Aug. 31, 2007.
The package an improvised explosive device was found in is seen in this image released by the Toronto Police Service.
Source 1: CTV
Letter bomb arrival at Guelph home felt like a 'bad joke'
No known connections between Toronto cases and most recent: Police
Aug 25, 2007 04:30 AM didn't see this till today, when the above was shown
Tamara Cherry
Staff Reporter
John Becker's letter bomb arrived at his Guelph home in the form of an old, softcovered business book, pages taped together with an AA battery taped to the spine.
His name was spelled wrong on the Canada Post Xpresspost envelope: "Bekers," as it appears in the white pages. The return address was for Universal Business Consultants in Toronto. No such company is listed in this city.
So the contractor with Becker Renovations figured it was junk mail – he never deals with Toronto clients, after all.
When he ripped open and tipped the package, nothing came out.
He saw a book inside, attached to the envelope. "I wasn't thinking it would be anything like a bomb," the 38-year-old recalled yesterday, two days after the package arrived. So he pulled it out.
"I yank on it and this cord snaps – this elastic restraint of some sort – and I guess that's what was supposed to detonate it."
Becker hadn't yet heard about the two letter bombs delivered to Toronto residents over the past couple of weeks, but "an obvious bulge" in the book, along with the battery and taped pages, brought the word "bomb" to his mind.
"I was thinking along the lines that it was some sort of joke – a bad joke."
It didn't take long for the police explosives disposal unit to realize it was the real thing. Part of the street was evacuated and the book, packed with tiny metal projectiles, was found to contain an "explosive charge."
The controlled detonation blew a book-sized portion of Becker's back deck to smithereens.
So, why him?
"I try to live an honest life – just work and spend time with my kids on the weekend and stuff like that. I'm pretty low-key. I don't go drinking in the bars or (do) drugs or sell drugs." And he certainly doesn't know anyone "capable of doing something like this."
"It's slowly sinking in and you get a little nervous," Becker said. "And then you think, `No, it's just random, what am I worried about?'"
And why were the two Toronto victims picked?
Aside from the fact that they, too, were homemade explosives, there are "no known connections" between the Toronto cases and Becker's, Toronto police Const. Wendy Drummond said.
But the Toronto cases are strikingly similar. Both were delivered in 8.5-by-11-inch bubble-wrap envelopes with Chiman courier tags. But Chiman says it never delivered the envelopes, which were "placed in an obvious place where somebody would find them," Drummond said. Both contained homemade bombs, with petroleum-type fluid used as an accelerant.
Neither envelope had a return address or had anything other than the bomb, such as a book, inside. One was delivered Aug. 11 to a home near Victoria Park Ave. and Lawrence Ave. E. – that one injured the recipient's hands when he opened it. The other arrived Aug. 19 at a home near Yonge St. and Sheppard Ave. W. Police detonated that one.
Police in Guelph and Toronto are working together to determine if there are any ties between the incidents.
Source 2: TheStar |
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| jchung52 |
| holy fuk, so i was driving over that? i was leaving the cne around 12 and the dvp was all blocekd off, people looking over the lakeshore. i was wondering why there were so many popos |
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| Euphorica |
| saw it on the news at noon. crazy |
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| Jem_hadar |
| quote: | Originally posted by Skipper
jack bauer! |
it! No way, this one needs CHUCK NORRIS!
I'm not playing around when its in or around my own backyard, so to speak! ;) |
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| crazedcanuck |
| Nevermind, had the wrong area. |
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| DaRoZa |
| i dunno about anyone else but this letter bomb stuff is so annoying i don't even want to read about it... like really... who does that? car bombs are one thing, but trying to kill someone in that special moment where they are wondering if they got something good in the mail is just pathetic. |
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| geroin |
| quote: | Originally posted by DaRoZa
car bombs are one thing |
what thing, it is just as ing pathetic as the rest of them |
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