SOUTHWEST HARBOR, Maine — No charges will be filed against a person who planted a fake bomb near a local municipal pier in October, according to a local police official.
Lt. Mike Miller, acting chief of the Southwest Harbor Police Department, said Tuesday that the fake bomb was part of a prank that one fisherman was playing against another. The suspicious device, which appeared to be a small hand-held propane torch wrapped in duct tape and with wires sticking out the top, was found Oct. 22 by a municipal employee at the base of a building wall adjacent to the parking lot of the Lower Town Dock, police have said.
“They were both embarrassed and remorseful,” Miller said Tuesday about the fishermen, whom he declined to identify. “They were given a tongue-lashing, and we’re pretty sure they won’t do it again.”
The scare resulted in the area being cordoned off by public safety personnel and in some Coast Guard personnel being moved temporarily from the nearby barracks to another part of the local Coast Guard station, away from the municipal parking area.
Members with the Maine State Police Bomb Squad responded to the scene and destroyed the device.
Miller said Tuesday that the State Fire Marshal’s Office discussed the case with the Hancock County District Attorney’s office prior to the decision being made to not file charges against the people involved in the prank.
Carletta “Dee” Bassano, district attorney for Hancock County, said Tuesday that the prank involved one person leaving the fake bomb where the other would see it, but there was no written or verbal communication involved that alerted anybody to the presence of the pretend explosive device. Had there been some kind of communication, one or more charge may have been warranted, she said, but there’s not enough evidence to hang a case on without it.
“Usually, there’s something that draws attention to the device,” the prosecutor said.
