Pipe bomb explosion leaves damage in Lowellville
Posted: July 19, 2015By Janet Rogers, Reporter
LOWELLVILLE, Ohio -
An explosive device sends jagged shrapnel into cars, homes, and victims in Lowellville.
The Youngstown Bomb Squad says the flying metal put anyone within a half block radius in danger.
Saturday at about 10:30 in the evening, chaos erupted on East Grant Street in Lowellville. Police, the Fire Department, Youngstown's Bomb Squad, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and fire arms responded after a make shift cannon, someone brought to a cook out, exploded turning into a pipe bomb.
Leslie Brown whose husband was struck while attending a party at 5 East Grant Street said, "It happened so fast. It was like a loud boom. I heard glass shattering and then I heard kids screaming because they were scared. I looked and I saw my husbands leg was ripped open near his knee and blood was pouring out.
Keith Brown said, "I was sitting there talking to my buddies and I heard a bomb go off, next thing I look down and my leg is split wide open. Doctors put 39 stitches in my leg to patch my skin back on."
Two others received minor injuries from the blast. By daylight the damage on Grant Street was even more evident.
Windows from cars were blown out, the metal punched holes through cars, deflated tires, and shattered screen doors.
At a home next door a piece of metal shrapnel went through the car garage which was closed at the time, blew a hole through the metal frame, traveled a few more feet and embedded in the stair railing which was solid wood. Just about another foot away was the door to the inside, where the home owner's daughter and her friend were playing video games. Upstairs the homeowner showed us how a piece of metal had traveled through the vinyl siding, sheet rock, into a bedroom and blew a hole in a TV.
Lowell's Fire Captain, Kenneth Day said, "The home made devices are illegal and nothing to toy with. When your talking about metal and containing that kind of force and what it can do. We see things of this nature going on overseas, when it happens in a contained small area, these are no devices to mess with at all."
Keith Brown the fork lift operator who is now unable to get into his pick up truck to even drive and who can not work, is thankful to be alive. Brown and his wife say, "The man who did this needs to pay for the damage he caused to me and the other people who were injured, and to people whose cars are destroyed, and homes damaged."
No charges have been filed yet, but police do have the name of a person of interest.
The Youngstown Bomb Squad says the flying metal put anyone within a half block radius in danger.
Saturday at about 10:30 in the evening, chaos erupted on East Grant Street in Lowellville. Police, the Fire Department, Youngstown's Bomb Squad, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and fire arms responded after a make shift cannon, someone brought to a cook out, exploded turning into a pipe bomb.
Leslie Brown whose husband was struck while attending a party at 5 East Grant Street said, "It happened so fast. It was like a loud boom. I heard glass shattering and then I heard kids screaming because they were scared. I looked and I saw my husbands leg was ripped open near his knee and blood was pouring out.
Keith Brown said, "I was sitting there talking to my buddies and I heard a bomb go off, next thing I look down and my leg is split wide open. Doctors put 39 stitches in my leg to patch my skin back on."
Two others received minor injuries from the blast. By daylight the damage on Grant Street was even more evident.
Windows from cars were blown out, the metal punched holes through cars, deflated tires, and shattered screen doors.
At a home next door a piece of metal shrapnel went through the car garage which was closed at the time, blew a hole through the metal frame, traveled a few more feet and embedded in the stair railing which was solid wood. Just about another foot away was the door to the inside, where the home owner's daughter and her friend were playing video games. Upstairs the homeowner showed us how a piece of metal had traveled through the vinyl siding, sheet rock, into a bedroom and blew a hole in a TV.
Lowell's Fire Captain, Kenneth Day said, "The home made devices are illegal and nothing to toy with. When your talking about metal and containing that kind of force and what it can do. We see things of this nature going on overseas, when it happens in a contained small area, these are no devices to mess with at all."
Keith Brown the fork lift operator who is now unable to get into his pick up truck to even drive and who can not work, is thankful to be alive. Brown and his wife say, "The man who did this needs to pay for the damage he caused to me and the other people who were injured, and to people whose cars are destroyed, and homes damaged."
No charges have been filed yet, but police do have the name of a person of interest.