By Brendan Browne
Students at the High School for Arts and Business in Corona had to evacuate the building Tuesday after a 14-year-old student brought in a set of homemade smoke or pipe bombs, police said. The Police Department’s bomb squad diffused the devices, the NYPD said.
The boy, who was not identified, was arrested after he was said to be carrying the bombs in a shoe box with possible intent to sell them on Tuesday afternoon at the 105-25 Horace Harding Blvd. school, police said.
Officers did not specify the type of materials used in the bombs or how dangerous they might be, but said the student had three devices of some sort in the shoe box. A Board of Education spokesman provided a different account, saying the student had only one smoke bomb, which was not lit, but he declined to comment further.
“They just said that there was a fire drill, but they didn’t tell us there might be a bomb,” said one worried student from Forest Hills who was part of the crowd milling around the school Tuesday afternoon. “It’s a scary thing to find out there might be a bomb in your school. Nothing like this has ever happened here before.”
Students and teachers evacuated the school about 12:30 p.m. when the fire alarm was set off, teachers said. They waited outside the school for about an hour and a half, unaware of the reason for the fire alarm and the police presence, they said. The school’s principal, Steven Drake, declined to comment.
“He brought in stink bombs, I’m told,” said one teacher, who asked to remain anonymous. “But we’re not sure what happened.”
The bomb squad searched all classrooms, but turned up nothing besides the student’s shoe box, police said. After the school was declared safe, students and faculty re-entered and the suspect was taken to the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst, a community affairs officer at the scene said. Another officer from the 110th Precinct declined to comment further.
The High School for Arts and Business opened in 1999, aided by funds from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Vocational and Adult Education. The school has more than 700 students in grades nine to 12.
Reach reporter Brendan Browne by email at TimesLedger@aol.com or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 155.
