Streetsboro police are investigating the illegal detonation of explosive devices on four separate nights at Trail Lake Park in Streetsboro.
On Friday, Aug. 9, Officer Matthew Martinez responded to a complaint about explosions that were heard from a home on Ravenna Road at approximately 11:09 p.m. The person said they heard one explosion on four different nights, with each happening around 11 p.m.
After an initial investigation, police recovered “remnants of several plastic containers” in the parking lot at Trail Lake Park, along with an “intact plastic jug filled with an unknown liquid,” according to a Streetsboro police report obtained by The Portager. Although two incident reports were filed, only one has been released.
Cotton swabs containing the unknown substance were also recovered from the scene. All evidence has been sent to the BCI lab for testing, though Chief Tricia Wain is unsure when they will get the results back.
“I know when we take stuff to the regular lab, sometimes we get results in a week,” Wain said. “Sometimes we don’t get lab results for two months. It just depends on how busy the lab is, and where we are in line in the level of importance.”
At the moment, Wain believes it was a bomb made out of materials that can be purchased at any hardware store.
“It looks like a Drano bomb, but we are not bomb experts, so the lab actually has to tell us what it was made out of,” Wain said. “The closest thing we can describe it as is a Drano bomb, which unfortunately is pretty easy to build.”
The undetonated homemade bombs left at the scene could have posed a risk for park-goers or first responders.
“Two of the containers were left behind and had not detonated,” Wain said. “That’s a safety hazard for all the first responders and any of the park-goers that might have stumbled onto it later on. All it could take is somebody picking up something and shaking it wrong, or moving it wrong, and they have something explode in their hands. They’ve gotten really fortunate right now that nobody’s gotten hurt and they haven’t hurt themselves.”
Wain believes the detonation of these bombs could fall into the category of unlawful possession of a dangerous ordnance, but there are currently no suspects in the case, she said.
Police aren’t sure whether the bomb detonations are isolated to Trail Lake Park, but Wain encourages anyone who sees suspicious activity at the park to report it to the Streetsboro Police Department or to the Portage County Sheriff’s Office, if the activity takes place outside the city.
“They’ve gotten pretty lucky so far,” Wain said. “We’re just hoping nobody gets hurt in the meantime.”
