After explosion next to synagogue, police increase patrols; suspect sought
Authorities continued their search Monday for a homeless man sought on suspicion of setting off a homemade explosive device next to a Santa Monica synagogue.
Ron Hirsch, 60, has been seen around Chabad House and other Jewish temples and should be considered "extremely dangerous," authorities said.
Santa Monica and Los Angeles police have stepped up patrols at local temples and Jewish organizations over the weekend as they search for Hirsch.
Janti Rashti, 59, whose home was damaged when the concrete mass fell on her rooftop, said she recognized Hirsch as a man who sometimes slept by the side of the synagogue. "I just don't believe it was him," Rashti said Saturday. "The synagogue was never mean to him. I certainly never did anything to him."
John Fasce, 60, a homeless man in the area, said he had seen Hirsch before. "If I see him," Fasce said, "I'm calling 911."
Thursday's blast sent a 300-pound metal pipe encased in concrete crashing through the roof of Rashti's home, next door to Chabad House on 17th Street, near Broadway.
Law-enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times that the explosive contained gunpowder and that some of the materials had been linked to Hirsch.
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Photos: (top) Santa Monica firefighters remove a 300-pound metal pipe encased in concrete from the roof of a home after it was catapulted into the air from a plastic bin on April 7. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
(bootm) Ron Hirsch. Credit: Santa Monica Police Department
EDITOR'S PICKS:
How did a homeless man build and transport a 300 pound explosive device?
Did he build it on-site? In public? And no one noticed?
There's something to this story that we don't know.
Henry Thornton
Posted by: HRT | April 11, 2011 at 08:43 AM
I was visiting Long Beach FBI by 4/4/2011. I told about federal crime that happened me. Man agrees that it is federal crime. He told me FBI will not investigate this crime. Is FBI in Long Beach, CA serious? In all LA county is now “hot” for FBI. Bomb in Santa Monica another package in Metro Union Station LA. What will be next?
Posted by: Ivan Stelmak | April 11, 2011 at 08:58 AM
Individual acts seldom result in the changes desired and often occur due to perceived impotence. Hirsch has a problem and obviously doesn't know how to solve it. Religions too often become a focus for these problems as they also tend to aggravate them.
Posted by: contraryjim | April 11, 2011 at 09:03 AM
What are the odds that a homeless man is a bomb making expert, and has access to large amounts of gunpowder???
Posted by: Tom M. | April 11, 2011 at 09:11 AM
Get these people off the streets. They are a menace to society.
Posted by: Neil | April 11, 2011 at 09:34 AM
It was said on the news that this was all a freak accident. So why are they trying to make it seem as if someone purposely did it?
Posted by: Varuka | April 11, 2011 at 09:51 AM
When will someone wake up to how dangerous these homeless really are?
2 out of 3 homeless are convicted criminals. The other 1 out of 3 are questionable. For all you know, terrorist probably can just hide among the homeless and we will never know.
I heard in the news about a senior woman being push to her death at LA Union Station by a homeless woman, A woman got rob by a homeless man in her car at a freeway exit, Homeless man stab a girl in Orange County for no reason, A family got stab by a homeless man in a restaurant, a Home Depot robbed by a homeless man and he took off in a Taxi, and these are just a few I heard within the last couple of months in the news.
And yet most people are not aware of how dangerous these homelss really are. They probably are brainwash by Charity Organization that profit from charitable donation for the homeless and stupidly forget how dangerous these homelss really are.
How many people have to die before we wake up to this fact about the homeless.
Posted by: Adamantium | April 11, 2011 at 10:38 AM
I thought it was a freak accident... What's going on with these people.. Make your mind up and stop misinforming the community..
Posted by: Angel | April 11, 2011 at 11:46 AM
READERS the homeless man did NOT make the explosive. He saw the suspect.
Posted by: ugg | April 11, 2011 at 11:49 AM