Byrnes Mill Police are waiting to hear whether a device they found Wednesday (June 15) at a mobile home is a pipe bomb.
Between noon and 12:30 p.m., Byrnes Mill Police officers responded to a call about suspicious activity at a home in the 3700 block of Wheatfield Drive, which is in the Byrnes Mill Farms mobile home park, and while they were investigating, discovered what they believed to be an explosive device, Sgt. Roger Ide said.
“We knocked on the door and made contact with the residents and found that two of the men at the home had outstanding warrants,” he said. “We asked if we could look around and were granted permission.”
Officers found a small amount of what they believed to be a controlled substance at the home. They also found a device they believed to be a homemade pipe bomb in a backpack on the back porch. The backpack belonged to a 50-year-old man Imperial man who was a visitor to the home, Ide said.
A man at the scene said he believed the device contained black powder and 50-caliber bearings, Ide said.
Police Chief Gary Dougherty said officers were uncertain whether the device was volatile but erred on the side of caution and called in experts to examine the device.
Police evacuated surrounding homes, cleared the street and closed it to vehicles while they waited for the other officers to make their way to Byrnes Mill from St. Louis. At 4 p.m., officers from the FBI, ATF and the St. Louis County Bomb and Arson Unit arrived on the scene.
“It took about 45 minutes, but I think they made good time considering it was rush hour traffic,” Dougherty said.
Officers from the other agencies spent about an hour and a half to determine whether to try to detonate the device or take it with them. In the end, the St. Louis County Bomb and Arson Unit took the device with them, Dougherty said.
The two men wanted on warrants were taken into custody and transported to Jefferson County authorities. The man suspected of building the device was wanted for defacing a firearm, and the other man was wanted for possession of a controlled substance, Byrnes Mill Police reported.
Depending on analysis of the item believed to be a bomb, as well as tests on the substance believed to be illegal drugs, more arrests could be made, police said.