Reply #15: Hey, this one might actually contain more than just underpants! Then again [View All]

[Ian David]

.... it could just be a flashlight:

SAN FRANCISCO
Starbucks flashlight scare recounted

Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, January 13, 2006

San Francisco authorities struggled to explain Thursday how they concluded that an object left in a Starbucks bathroom was a bomb, when tests revealed it was nothing more than a flashlight with corroded batteries.

"This appeared, by itself, to be a bomb,'' said police spokesman Sgt. Neville Gittens, who was the first to relay word from bomb squad investigators Monday afternoon that the object was an "improvised explosive device." The news quickly went national, and at one point CNN was broadcasting developments.

Gittens would not specify what about the device was so convincing, other than to say that all the people who saw it described it as a "tube-shaped cylinder with a fuse.''

<snip>

The man who says he left the flashlight in the Starbucks, Ronald Schouten, 44, remains in custody in County Jail on unrelated matters. He told police he had found the flashlight on the street and thought it could be used for self-defense, but decided to leave it behind after using the restroom.

More:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/13/BAGC9GMUSD1.DTL