Police arrested a man in New Hampshire over the weekend after they say a doorbell video camera caught him planting live pipe bombs under his neighbor’s porch.
The Laconia Police Department shared on Sunday that Tirar Tortorello, 53, now faces felony charges of possession of an infernal device after he was caught placing the packages.
The department’s police chief, Matt Canfield, shared on Sunday that officers had received a report of a suspicious package.
Investigators said police were contacted about the package by another neighbor who thought it was a drug drop. However, when officers arrived, they discovered it was not drugs but pipe bombs.
“As I was unwrapping that bag, I could see a white PVC pipe with what looked like a fuse connected to it,” an officer stated in an affidavit, according to The Associated Press.
After identifying the bombs, the New Hampshire State Police bomb squad was called to the scene to handle the explosives.
While the bomb squad dealt with the situation, a shelter-in-place advisory was put in place and lasted for nearly five hours as the team used a robot to X-ray the package, KTVZ reported.
“The device was transported off site to a safe location, where it was detonated and, indeed, identified as explosive and potentially dangerous,” Canfield said. “It was further identified as three separate pipe bombs taped together as one unit.”
Court documents obtained by WMUR show that police say Tortorello admitted to them he placed the package in its location and described the PVC piping inside. However, his attorney has said that he did not know the package was a bomb.
Canfield shared during his press conference that the situation could have been very dangerous had law enforcement not acted when they did.
“We are fortunate that our bomb squad partners with state police were able to render the device safe, and nobody got hurt,” the chief said.
Tortorello is currently being held without bail.
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