Los Angeles News

Authorities traced cell-phone signals Sunday to find and arrest a man who left a suspicious package on a public bus, and then repeatedly phoned in bomb threats. The satchel was blown up by a bomb squad, but contained only "miscellaneous papers," according to Lt. Keith Obenberger of the sheriff's Transit Services Bureau.

The bomb threats kept coming, and sheriff's detectives were able to trace the man's cell-phone transmissions to a neighborhood near East Colorado Boulevard and North First Street in Arcadia.

"I believe we found him (the suspect) on the street," Obenberger said. The incident started at about 9:45 a.m., when the suspect made several calls warning that there was going to be a bomb on a bus, singling out the bus route number.

Deputies notified the bus driver, who said he found an unattended package underneath one of the rear seats in his bus, he said.

Deputies and a bomb squad rushed to the area of Baldwin Avenue and Las Tunas Drive, evacuating what they said was a "large circumference" of neighboring businesses and an apartment building, Obenberger said.

The squad blew the suspicious package apart at about 11:30 a.m., and the suspect "kept making more threat," Obenberger said. "We were able to narrow down where he was at."

The man, whose name has not been released, was booked at the sheriff's Temple station on suspicion of making terrorist threats and false reporting of a bomb.