A Douglas County bomb squad detonated a plastic soda bottle filled with drain cleaner and rigged to explode underneath a walkway in Castle Rock this morning.
A town parks worker found it tucked in the girder of a bridge on a walking trail at Paint Brush Park, near The Meadows subdivision just before 11 a.m.
The sheriff’s department’s bomb squad used a robot, which used an electrical charge to set it off.
“You can’t risk handling these things,” said Castle Rock Fire Chief Art Morales.
The device didn’t have enough power to damage the bridge, but has about the same charge of an M-80 firecracker, he said.
“It was probably kids, I’m pretty sure,” Morales said of the culprits.
The incident is under investigation, he said. Planting such a device is a felony.
“If it goes off and hurts someone, it’s an act of terrorism,” he said.
Morales said it’s the first such device found in Castle Rock, but it’s a fad kids learn about on the Internet.
“It’s so dangerous to even handle this thing,” he said. “It could blow off a finger or a hand pretty easily, and the acid inside sprays everywhere.”
