Package bomb injures woman

Parcel sent to police officer’s home in Alameda explodes when opened

A package mailed to the Alameda home of a police officer exploded and injured a woman who opened it, authorities said Tuesday, and U.S. Postal Service investigators are probing whether the incident is linked to a parcel bomb sent to an East Palo Alto residence in October.

The package bomb was delivered Friday to a home on Lilac Street in the Bay Farm Island neighborhood of Alameda and the intended recipient was a police officer, said Sgt. Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff ’s Office.

He said the package detonated around 4:15 p.m. when a woman opened it and suffered non-life threatening injuries.

Kelly said that when bomb squad members arrived, they were told the woman who opened the package was the wife of the intended recipient. Kelly declined to release further details about the victim, whose name was not released.

The incident is being investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the USPS.

U.S. Postal Inspector Jeff Fitch said the agency is also investigating the explosion of another package in East Palo Alto on Oct. 19. The person who opened that parcel also suffered non-life threatening injuries.

“At this point, we’re not speculating about a connection,” Fitch said.

He said evidence collected

from the East Palo Alto incident was sent to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service lab in Washington, D.C., to be analyzed, and that remnants from the Alameda parcel bomb will be inspected at the same lab.

Fitch declined to release details on the Bay Area parcel bombings, but noted that there is a task force working fulltime to investigate the incidents.

“These instances are very, very rare,” Fitch said. “But one instance is too many.”

He urged anyone who receives unexpected packages that appear suspicious to call 911.

“If it’s anything you didn’t order, or anything that looks not quite right, set it aside,” he said.

He declined to specify what security measures the Postal Service uses to prevent such packages from reaching homes, or how the parcels sent to the Alameda and East Palo Alto victims bypassed them. Sophie Haigney is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sophie. haigney@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SophieHaigney