City, state police offer $5K reward in Pleasant Street explosives attack

Discussion

PLEASE NOTE CHANGES IN POLICY: Commenters are required to have a username with a valid and verified email address. Gloucestertimes.com reserves the right to ban the IP address of any commenter (person) found using multiple aliases under multiple e-mail addresses in a deceptive manner. Posts that do not meet site standards, which can be found here, will be removed.

If you are experiencing problems logging in or posting comments, please contact Disqus' help center by clicking here.

comments powered by Disqus

July 2, 2012

City, state police offer $5K reward in Pleasant Street explosives attack

By Steven Fletcher Staff Writer The Gloucester Daily Times Mon Jul 02, 2012, 03:54 PM EDT

Gloucester and Massachusetts State Police are offering a reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of anyone involved with an explosion on Pleasant Street early Sunday morning.

At 4:02 a.m. Sunday, police responded to a report of broken glass at Mamie's Kitchen on the corner of Pleasant and Liberty Streets and found that an explosive device had blown up newspaper sales box on the sidewalk, sending debris through the window and damaging a door and a wall of the building as well.

Police and the State Police Bomb Squad are investigating, and were on the scene this afternoon.

Gloucester Chief of Detectives Lt. Kathy Auld said authorities haven't made anything out of a pile of mangled metal sitting in the police station. Police have also not yet been able to pinpoint what type of device caused the explosion — except to say that the remains of the metal box indicates that it was more than a piece of fireworks.

With that in mind, city and state police posted a $5,000 reward today for information leading to the conviction of whoever placed the explosive, Auld said.

She added that state police are now slated to take the debris for further examination.

"They'll take the pieces back to the lab, or at the minimum swabs back to the lab to be sure," Auld said.

We will update this story here at gloucestertimes.com as more information becomes available.

To have a text update regarding this story or other local breaking news coverage, just sign up for the Times' free text-alert service on the gloucestertimes.com homepage. For more on this story, look to tomorrow's print and online editions of the Gloucester Daily Times and gloucestertimes.com.

Steven Fletcher may be contacted at 1-978-283-7000 x3455, or sfletcher@gloucestertimes.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevengdt.