By Mitchell Byars and John Bear
Daily Camera
BOULDER, Colo. — A homemade bomb left outside the Nederland Police Department on Tuesday morning was active but failed to detonate, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The FBI is conducting a joint investigation with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office and Nederland police, according to a news release.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office has called the device, detonated early this morning, a “legitimate improvised explosive device.”
A Nederland police officer coming into work Tuesday morning discovered the bomb inside a backpack that had been left outside the police department. It prompted the evacuation of the Caribou Ridge Shopping Center for the entire day.
The bomb squad X-rayed the backpack twice inside the department before removing it from the building. The decision was made to detonate the device in the plaza because it was not safe to move it further. Officials with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the device was detonated sometime in the early morning hours.
Boulder sheriff’s Cmdr. Mike Wagner confirmed this afternoon that the device was a homemade explosive, and said that because the device was legitimate, the Federal Bureau of Investigation would be taking the lead role in the case.
Joe Minock, who lives about a mile away, said he was aware of the situation before he went to sleep at 10:30 p.m., but still was not prepared for the detonation at about 1:45 a.m.
“I heard a nice big old bang that sat me straight up in bed,” said Minock, who heard from neighbors closer to the shopping center that the blast shook their windows. “It was certainly not like a firecracker.”