POLICE IN WINNIPEG DON’T BELIEVE THE MAN WHO DROVE WITH AN IED IN A TOTE DANGLING FROM HIS TRUCK WAS THE INTENDED TARGET OF A BUNGLED BOMB PLOT THAT INJURED FOUR PEOPLE.
Exploding bag possible bungled bomb plot
Police in Winnipeg are investigating whether a bungled bomb plot might have led to a mysterious explosion outside a 7-Eleven on Saturday night, which set a truck ablaze and injured all four passengers inside.
Police say that around 11 p.m., a man in his late 60s left his house, got into his truck and drove to the convenience store in the city’s west end, a few kilometres away.
After the man left the store and returned to his truck, he saw the bag — which had an improvised explosive device hidden inside — dangling from the vehicle.
The man glanced inside the bag, police said, but didn’t rummage through it.
From just peeking in, the contents would not have appeared suspicious, investigators said. The bomb was concealed inside another item, although police would not describe that item.
Police do not believe the bag was placed on the truck on the way to the store, or in the parking lot, said Const. Rob Carver, a spokesman with Winnipeg Police.
Investigators believe someone hooked it onto the vehicle while it was parked outside the man’s house and he just didn’t notice it before he left.
Police were cryptic with their descriptions of the bag. It wasn’t a duffel bag, nor a knapsack, nor a plastic grocery bag, but more like a reusable tote.
The theory, Carver said, is that whoever placed the bag expected the recipient to look inside, which would have detonated the bomb.
“Someone has gone out of their way to obviously inflict harm,” he said.
The truly perplexing part, however, is that investigators don’t believe the truck’s owner was the bomb’s intended target.
“Perhaps he was targeted in a case of mistaken identity,” Carver said. “It’s certainly an element that investigators are pursuing.”
It’s not clear who the true target might have been. Police have yet to announce any suspects in the case.
Carver said that when the man spotted the bag in the store parking lot, he was puzzled.
“He doesn’t say, ‘Oh my god there’s a bomb on my truck,’ ” the officer said. “He says, ‘Someone’s left something. Did anyone lose a bag?’ — which I think would be a reasonable thing if you come to your vehicle and see something hanging on it.
“I think I could assume that somebody found something near my truck ... and hung it on my vehicle.”
The man then went back into the store and asked around. Meanwhile, four young people, between the ages of 17 and 27, pulled up to buy cigarettes. They spotted the bag.
One of the passengers, Shaunovin Houle, told CBC News that his friend, the driver, told a woman who was with them to grab the bag.
“I just told him, ‘No, let’s just go,’ ” Houle said in the CBC interview outside a Winnipeg hospital, with a cast on his left forearm and bandages on his right hand.
“I guess his curiosity got the best of him.”
As they pulled out of the parking lot, the woman looked through the bag.
“Seeing what was in the bag was a terrible mistake here,” Carver said.
Since the case is under investigation, police would not reveal why the bomb detonated when it did, and not while it dangled from the truck on the way to the 7-Eleven. Carver did say that the woman somehow accidentally triggered it.
“I’m not giving you the specifics of how that happened: whether some part of it was touched, or a box was opened or whether it was somehow manipulated in a way that caused that to go off,” Carver said.
The four were barely half a block away from the 7-Eleven when the bomb exploded and the cab of the truck caught fire.
“Once she stuck her hand in the bag, it just engulfed in flames, just burst, just exploded pretty much,” Houle told CBC. The truck careened into a fire hydrant. “My arm was on fire, same with my hand ... my hair,” Houle said.
“Curiosity can get you killed.”
The four were taken to hospital, two in critical condition. On Wednesday, police said those two were faring better and are now in stable condition. Police said all four passengers are innocent bystanders, with no connection to the case.
Neither is the man in his 60s believed to be connected in any way to the bomb maker.
SEEING WHAT WAS IN THE BAG WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.