screws that were criticdrilled n the wires were drilled around the screws. in the middle of where the clothes pin would close, the sla had put a wooden shim in that space to block the circuit. attached to that shim was a magnet that was placed to the undercarriage of the car. once that shim was pulled out, the two screws would make contact with each other and that would allow the circuit to be complete and the bomb would go off. the officers pulled out at an angle. that caused the trigger mechanism to tweak just enough so that the trigger points didn t match. and by a miracle, the bomb didn t go off. after the police discovered the first bomb, they called basically every officer that was on the street and had them go look under their cars. there was another bomb that was found at holland mic station. when he went back too his car,
more sent to intimidate? we re not going to give you 100% accurate description of what the devices were, but we have to treat them as live devices. this has a protocol that our bomb squad people use and it keeps everybody safe. joining us onset danny cevallos. this is all very, very serious, but legally speaking, where does this put us? there are several different categories of bomb when it s mailed like this. it could be something that would have gone off but law enforcement got to it in time. in this case, it s definitely a destructive device as defined by federal law, which actually subsumed destructive devices and bombs under the definition of firearms, strangely enough. moving forward if it s a dud, what does a dud mean? does this mean that all the component parts were there but something went wrong and the bomb didn t go off? in that case, it s still considered a firearm, and by
an isis one and painted part of an isis-inspired threat on one wall. why don t you hear about the story? it s obvious. first the bomb didn t go off. that s how news works. we never report on the plane lands safely. and of course the weapon was not a gun but a bomb. anyway we should be grateful no one got hurt but don t be relieved because the only reason why no one got hurt is that they got lucky. that backpack smoked and a kid saw it. i returned to the solutions. hardening soft targets, surveillance cameras should have caught kid painting the wall or placing the flag. metal detectors couldn t do a lot to reduce all threats but right now all we have to rely on our eyeballs and chance. we can do better. this story was on the front page of the usa today. 756 copycat threats since the parkland mass murder. there s been
there others sent back? that much we just don t know yet. can i pull this conversation out a little bit to talk about, as i framed at the beginning, did this change something? does it change how we think about securing america? mike chertoff, former secretary of homeland security, we go through the realities. i talked to you over the years. this is something that people in your line of work have been expecting for a long time after 9/11 and look at what our recent history shows us. we prepared this graphically about plots that have not succeeded or somehow been thwarted. you go back to the so-called shoe bomber in december of 2001, richard reid. and then you had zazi planning to attack subways back in september of 09. you have the christmas day bomber, so-called, tries to blow up a flight but he wasn t able to light the bomb. then you have a successful plot by shahzad in times square except the bomb doesn t go off. everything else worked. the bomb didn t go off. so, obviously, it wa
an incident like this, at least initially. and he may have information, he may have nothing to do with it. tell us a little bit more about how they re going to go about trying to find who might be behind this. yeah, well, there s a number of things going on. number one, forensics. this is your classic csi investigation. of course, the bomb didn t go off. now the propane tanks we re talking about, chris, this is not what you and i would think about that we have hooked up to our grill in our back yard. a 20, 25-pound. these are much smaller, they re referred to as camping propane tanks. something like you d use for a lantern or small cook stove. nonetheless dangerous, but smaller, easier to carry. what investigators are going to be able to do is, number one, fingerprint off of those containers. number two, they ll probably be able to track them back to where they were purchased. i know investigators were across the street from the mall at a target store doing some investigation. so