Sunland residents settle back in after search for suspects, explosive detonation

Residents of a Sunland neighborhood were settling back in their homes today after a daylong search for suspects in an incident that prompted LAPD officers to arrest three and detonate an explosive device.

Police discovered the device during a traffic stop around 3 a.m. Thursday, said Officer Bruce Borihanh, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman.

An LAPD bomb squad blew it up three hours later to render it safe, triggering a loud explosion, police said. There were no injuries reported.

Officers arrested two suspects who had been in the sport utility vehicle that was stopped on Hillrose, but two others ran off, one of whom was later tracked down, police said. Details of that arrest were not released.

Pursuing the fugitive suspects led police into a Sunland neighborhood on a manhunt that prompted officers to evacuate some residents for up to 10 hours as a precaution. Some were not allowed to return until around 9 p.m. Thursday.

The investigation was being handled by the LAPD's downtown-based Criminal Conspiracy Division, according to watch commanders at the department's Foothill Station.

As of early today, police had not identified the three in custody, what charges they face and what additional evidence may have been uncovered since they were arrested.

Several hours before police detonated the explosive device in Sunland, a sheriff's bomb squad exploded a pipe bomb seized at a home in Long Beach.

Two men were arrested in the Long Beach case after handguns, a sawed-off rifle and methamphetamine were discovered along with a capped pipe that had a hole in it and appeared to contain explosives, Long Beach police said.

The blast that the sheriff's bomb squad detonated late Wednesday reverberated through the neighborhood, setting off car alarms and dog barks, but there were no injuries.