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Report from Chabad.org, from 7 p.m. PDT Saturday….
After classifying a Thursday morning explosion outside a S. Monica, Calif., Chabad-Lubavitch center as a possible industrial accident, law enforcement agencies reopened a criminal investigation into the matter, concluding that a projectile that landed on a neighboring roof was deliberately launched.
Transient Ron Hirsch, 60, also known as Israel Fisher, is the prime suspect in the attack – which led police to evacuate a four-block radius around the Chabad House run by Rabbi Isaac and Sara Levitansky.
According to the S. Monica Police Department, Hirsch, a heavyset white male who is being sought on state charges of possession of a destructive device and unrelated local charges, “is known to frequent synagogues and Jewish community centers seeking charity from patrons.”
He is considered “extremely dangerous.” An investigation by the local police, the FBI, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the S. Monica Fire Department continues.
The 6:45 a.m. explosion occurred shortly before morning prayer services at the Chabad House at the 1400 block of 17th Street. Worshippers who heard the blast thought nothing of it at first, but police – responding to a call about debris falling on the roof next door – ordered everyone outside. Shortly thereafter, they cordoned off the entire area.
No one was injured.
“An investigation into an explosion has been underway since the initial report was received,” police said on Friday. “Responding bomb technicians conducted initial field testing and found evidence of what appeared to be an industrial incident involving cement and other materials.”
But “over the next 24 hours, bomb technicians and detectives conducted further forensic analysis at the scene,” said police. “After unearthing much of the large portion of the cement found, [they] uncovered materials indicating that the device appeared to have been deliberately constructed.”
Mirel Levitansky, a local Chabad-Lubavitch emissary, told the S. Monica Patch that Hirsch had stopped by the synagogue “over the years.”
“There are people who come and go, attend prayer service,” she said. “He makes his rounds, looking for handouts, for money. … He hasn’t caused any trouble [in the past].”
She added, by way of understatement: “He needs a little bit of help.”
Report from the Associated Press, from 4:01 p.m. PDT Saturday….
Police were hunting a suspect Saturday in a blast outside a Santa Monica synagogue and community center that was initially believed to be an industrial accident. Area Jewish organizations were urged to be extra vigilant.
Ron Hirsch, 60, a transient, was linked to items found in and around a hunk of concrete and large pipe that flew some 25 feet into the air after Thursday’s explosion at Chabad House Lubavitch, Santa Monica police Sgt. Jay Trisler said in a statement Friday.
“The device appeared to have been deliberately constructed,” Trisler said. “Based on his suspected involvement in this incident, Hirsch is considered extremely dangerous,” Trisler said.
Hirsch, who is known to spend time at synagogues and Jewish community centers seeking charity, is wanted on state charges of possession of a destructive device and unrelated local charges, Trisler said.
Authorities said they knew of no motive behind the explosion, and Jewish groups said they did not believe anti-Semitism was necessarily behind it.
Trisler said officers had stepped up patrols Saturday at synagogues and other houses of worship in Santa Monica. In neighboring West Los Angeles, police assigned a unit to monitor synagogues Saturday, City News Service reported.
On Friday afternoon, the Anti-Defamation League issued a security alert to synagogues and other Jewish organizations in the Los Angeles area. The development was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
Authorities initially believed a worker was trying to remove the pipe from concrete when a chemical mixture created pressure and launched the 4-foot-long pipe and concrete plug into the air.
The explosion shattered windows, punched a hole in the synagogue, and sent the pipe ricocheting into a neighboring house where a young boy was sleeping. There were no injuries.
About 20 people had been attending a Passover service in the synagogue, and they and about 80 others from surrounding houses were evacuated for more than five hours.
The FBI and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have joined local agencies in the investigation.
“We have no evidence of any kind of threat to any Jewish institution or evidence that this was a hate crime,” said Amanda Susskind, regional director of the ADL’s Los Angeles region.
Susskind said the alert was “not intended to create undue alarm” but rather to keep people on the lookout for a man who seems to be disturbed.
The phone at the synagogue rang unanswered.