Federal and local law enforcement agencies are investigating an explosion that destroyed a mailbox on Buck Street in Gorham on April 4.
A police robot took apart another bomb found in an adjacent mailbox the following morning. The Gorham police have sent evidence to the state’s crime lab in Augusta.
Gorham Police Chief Ron Shepard said Susan Neily of Buck Street called police shortly before 8 a.m. on April 5, when she discovered her mailbox had been destroyed. She told police she heard a noise late the previous evening but had attributed it to a truck tailgate banging.
Shepard said Gorham Sgt. Robert Mailman discovered a capped plastic bottle containing tinfoil and an unidentified liquid in another mailbox on the same post.
Police barricaded the area and called the Portland bomb team, which utilized a robot to “neutralize the bottle,” Shepard said. The robot destroyed the bottle by firing a stream of water at the container, which Shepard described as a plastic fruit juice bottle.
Lt. Ted Ross of the Portland Police said police stayed 300 feet back while the robot, which has a water cannon, attacked the bottle from a couple feet away. “It opened up the container and dispersed the fluid,” Ross said.
Ross said the robot, which is equipped with multiple cameras, could be remotely controlled from a safe distance, reducing danger to officers. The robot cost $135,000 and was acquired through a Homeland Security grant.
Tom Rizzo of the U.S. Postal Service said police contacted Gorham Postmaster Mike Baillargeon and a postal inspector when the suspicious device was found in the second mailbox.
Rizzo said the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco collected evidence and he added that damaging a mailbox is a federal crime. “There would be serious charges connected with this,” Rizzo said. “It was blown completely to pieces.”
Rizzo said that all postal delivery employees in the surrounding area were warned about the incident. Delivery in the vicinity of the incident was delayed but the scene was cleared by about noon. Mail was delivered in that area by the end of that day. “We’re thankful that no one got hurt. It could have turned out differently,” he said.
Lt. Chris Sanborn of the Gorham Police said pieces of the mailbox were found across the road from where it exploded. “Someone could have gotten hurt,” Sanborn said.
Sanborn said most residents of the area were at work when the second device was found, but some people were evacuated. Gorham police searched other mailboxes in the area to make sure there were no other explosive devices.
Shepard said there has been occasional vandalism in which mailboxes have been hit by baseball bats. “I can’t remember the last time we had a mailbox blown up,” Shepard said.
Rizzo said there was a similar incident in Maine a few years ago.
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