St. George Bomb Squad detonates suspected bomb at Cedar High

CEDAR CITY – The St. George Police Bomb Squad was called to Cedar City Wednesday morning when a potential bomb threat was reported at Cedar High School.

Principal Kevin Garrett said the school’s resource officer found a suspicious object in the parking lot that morning, which was described as a “pipe bomb” in a tweet from SUU News on Twitter.

“It was cylindrical and capped on both sides,” he said “It looked really, really suspicious.” Unsure as to the contents of the package, the school was put into lockdown.

“We have different levels of lockdown for different situations,” Garrett said, and added that during the bomb scare no one was allowed to leave the school campus until faculty and authorities knew what was happening. “We need to make sure we know what we’re dealing with,” he said.

The school went into lockdown around 10:30 a.m., which lasted until 11:40 a.m. At that point, Garrett said the situation was under control. Only the parking lot remained off limits during this time. Students were allowed to leave for lunch and classes resumed at 12:15 p.m. “It was back to business as usual,” he said.

SUU News reported the St. George Police Bomb Squad arrived on the scene and used a robot to inspect the suspected pipe bomb. Unable to determine what the contents within the container were at the time, the robot proceeded to “detonate” it. The tube was filled with beans only, and not with harmful materials.

There is a possibility the object in question was actually a musical instrument similar to a rain stick, which can be either a cardboard or aluminum tube filled with beans or other material that, when shaken, produces a sound comparable to falling rain.

Despite the bomb scare, Garrett said he didn’t believe the incident was meant to be a prank. Instead, he said, he figured someone simply misplaced the item and it was mistaken for a bomb.

At the end of the day, the principal was happy with how things turned out. “As long as it wasn’t anything explosive, we had a good day,” he said.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @MoriKessler

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2012, all rights reserved.

 

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8 Comments

  • Murat September 5, 2012 at 1:35 pm

    The old “bean bombs” are not harmless, but you can thank me for sparing you the details.

  • Nick September 5, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    How do you “detonate” a pipe full of beans?

  • K September 5, 2012 at 2:26 pm

    I was in science class when the lockdown was issued. We locked the doors and my teacher continued with his lesson on the metric system. We had police walking through our room and our school was blocked off with crime scene tape and cop cars. I have officially redefined the word scary.

  • Murat September 5, 2012 at 3:10 pm

    The Imperial system is superior to the metric.

    • Dghws September 5, 2012 at 10:31 pm

      Only if you are Imperial… Although I grew up with that same system, once you use it for very large and very small numbers or are required to convert from one unit to another the true beauty of the SI becomes apparent. I’m sure that your familiarity with the Imperial system supports your opinion but your opinion alone does not make it so. As is usually the case, your opinion is just your opinion…one tool is good for some things, another for other things. I’m sure glad that students learning both systems can determine for themselves what tool they want to use and don’t rely on your expert advise telling them. You might want to do a little stoichiometry to pass the time before you reply. I’m sure you’ll do fine.

  • Karen September 5, 2012 at 4:55 pm

    “Unable to determine what the actual contends within the container were at the time…”
    “There is a possibility the object in question was a actually a musical instrument…”

    Anyone want to run a grammar check on this? MSWord didn’t pick it up, but a newspaper editor certainly should. Can we please attempt to preserve and pass on our language?

  • Nj September 5, 2012 at 8:41 pm

    I was in my computer class when it happened and we had to stay in our room for an hour until they finally let us go out the back to lunch. Scary

  • drizzle September 5, 2012 at 9:02 pm

    I’m gonna detonate the toilet

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