Drexel student in police custody after bomb scare
A handful of residents were evacuated from their houses in Mantua and a 25-year-old Drexel University student was in police custody early Monday morning after authorities found what appeared to be a bomb in his apartment that he allegedly planned to detonate on campus, cops said.
A handful of residents were evacuated from their houses in Mantua and a 25-year-old Drexel University student was in police custody early Monday morning after authorities found what appeared to be a bomb in his apartment that he allegedly planned to detonate on campus, police said.
Police responded to a three-story house divided into apartments on Mantua Avenue near 31st around 12:30 a.m. for a call about a disturbance inside. When they arrived a friend of the student who lives in the third-floor apartment told them the student had a bomb inside and was threatening to use it at the school.
The student gave police consent to search his apartment, investigators said, and once inside, cops found a jar filled with an unidentified black powder and wires sticking out of it. They took the student into custody and evacuated the duplex next door and the other apartments in the house.
Around 3:15 a.m., the bomb squad determined the device was harmless, and cleared the scene. A police spokeswoman said the student remained in custody Monday and that charges against him were pending.