THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 14, 1994 TAG: 9409140480
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
An off-duty police officer spotted something strange Tuesday in a courthouse men's room. It was a bomb, the first of three found as explosives experts using robots and dogs searched the building all afternoon and into the night.
Everyone was ordered out of the building at 11:20 a.m. when the first bomb was found next to a toilet in a second-floor restroom. No one was harmed.
It was the third consecutive Tuesday that the General District Court Building in the 200 block of N. King St. in downtown Hampton was cleared by a bomb scare.
Police didn't find any bombs during the first two searches, which came after anonymous threats.
This time, there was no telephone warning, and the man charged with making at least one of the earlier threats was already in jail.
That man, identified as 42-year-old Elester Williams, was arrested last week and charged in the bomb scare. On Monday, he was also accused of placing a bomb in Coliseum Mall on June 17. The mall was evacuated, and the bomb was removed without incident.
The first bomb found Tuesday was described by a court bailiff as tube-shaped with wires sticking out at both ends. He said an empty cigarette pack was found next to the device, which authorities disarmed.
Hampton police called in 12 state troopers, who brought four bomb-sniffing dogs and a robot. Investigators from the federal Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms bureau and explosive experts from nearby Langley Air Force Base also were called in.
The court building is located at the intersection of East Pembroke Avenue and North King Street. At least two courts were in session when the building was cleared.
Authorities kept onlookers about 300 feet away. They also closed King Street from East Pembroke Avenue to Lincoln Street.
At about 1 p.m., the first bomb was disarmed by the state police squad, according to Tammy Van Dame, spokeswoman for the state police. She declined to give details about the devices.
Some 40 minutes later, one the state police bomb-sniffing dogs discovered another bomb in a hallway on the first floor near an exit door.
The troopers took about two hours to survey the device, then detonated it in the building at 3:53 p.m. Van Dame would only say it was larger than the first bomb.
The explosion sounded like a shotgun blast, and a puff of smoke could be seen coming from one of the downstairs doorways.
The Air Force explosives experts sent their television-equipped, remote-controlled robot into the building to survey the detonation scene. At about 4:50 p.m., debris from the bomb was removed.
As the Langley crew put the robot back into its transport vehicle, a state police dog - a black Labrador retriever named Master Blaster - was sent back into the building.
Shortly before 5 p.m., a third bomb was was found by the dog inside an entrance to the magistrate's office on East Pembroke Avenue. That bomb was disarmed.
Judge William Andrews, whose court session was interrupted by the incident, said there might be changes in court security.
``We're going to wait for experts to tell us what has to be done,'' he said.
Sgt. Donnie Moore, a spokesman for the Hampton Police Department, said bomb specialists had declared the building free of explosive devices at 8:45 p.m. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
GARY C. KNAPP
Master Blaster, a state police Labrador retriever, helped in the
search for bombs at the General District Court Building in Hampton.
Two members of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Squad from Langley
Air Force Base in Hampton prepare a television-equipped robot to
survey the scene after a bomb was detonated at the court building.
Map
Graphic
WHAT HAPPENED
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: EXPLOSIVES BOMBS by CNB