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A pipe bomb thrown through a North Shore police station window has caused thousands of dollars of damage, shocking police who say someone could have been seriously injured or killed.
Shards of shrapnel from the bomb remain embedded in the Browns Bay station's foyer walls after Monday night's explosion, which shattered four safety-glass windows, burned carpet and caused light fittings to fall from the ceiling.
A pipe bomb is a piece of pipe filled with explosives. Police are often called to pipe-bomb incidents but believe this bomb, because it was thrown on Guy Fawkes night, may have been stuffed with firecracker explosives.
Detective Sergeant Scott Armstrong said it appeared that shrapnel had been stuffed with explosives into a brass pipe. It was lucky no one was inside the station at the time.
"If this happened during the day, then it would have been of massive concern," Mr Armstrong said.
Police were worried about the risk to members of the public - and to whoever threw the bomb.
"The damage to the police station can be repaired. It's inconvenient, we have to close the front counter, but that's not our main concern. Our main concern is we've got amateurs making a device out of a metal object with an unknown amount of explosives in between the shrapnel. It's just a recipe for someone getting seriously hurt.
"Those pieces could have been through their throats or arteries. It's not so much fun bragging about it to your friends when you've got pieces of shrapnel in you in a hospital bed."
Mr Armstrong said the danger with amateur devices was that they were completely unpredictable.
"It's just madness making home-made devices like this. These people are not experts. They don't know what the yield is.
"The casing appears to be brass, I think, so it's going to take a bit of an explosion to blow it apart like it is and we've only got really small pieces through the inside of the watch-house."
Mr Armstrong said police hoped the public could help them to find out exactly when the bomb was thrown. They know it was some time between 4.30pm on Monday and 8am yesterday.
It was hoped the offenders had bragged about their actions to friends and those people would call police.
* If you heard the explosion, or saw suspicious activity in the area, call North Shore police on (09) 488-6200.
- NZ HERALD STAFF
