By Kathleen Coates
The Press Democrat
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — The Sonoma County Sheriff’s bomb squad was called out after a cooler filled with improvised pyrotechnics was delivered to a Santa Rosa fire station Saturday evening.
The surrounding neighborhood and the station were evacuated at about 4:50 p.m. as the bomb squad X-rayed the cooler, determined it was not a bomb and placed it in a metal cylinder inside the bomb truck in the parking lot of Station 8 at 830 Burbank Ave. Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Charlie Lasala said the public was never in any danger and the bomb squad will destroy the contents of the cooler bag. He declined to further describe the improvised pyrotechnics because the case is an active investigation.
A middle-aged man who was not identified told fire station personnel and police that a woman he knew showed him the contents of the cooler, described by Lasala as “a Yeti cooler knockoff,” in Southwest Community Park, and took it from her.
“He said ‘Hey, you can’t have that,” Lasala said in a phone interview. “Then he took off on his mountain bike with the bag down Burbank Avenue to the fire station.”
Once the man banged on the station’s door and told them he thought he had a bomb, firefighters called Santa Rosa police, who investigated and then called the Sheriff’s Office.
Police are investigating the woman who brought the package to the park, who apparently received it from someone else. The man who delivered the cooler cooperated and was not considered a suspect, but only knew the woman’s first name, Lasala said.
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