5 suspects questioned over bottle bombs

TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WIVB) - Police are now questioning five juvenile suspects about "bottle bombs" placed around the town of Tonawanda.

It appears to have been just a prank, but investigators say it's a dangerous one and it's happening all too often, in part because of YouTube. That's becoming a huge problem for law enforcement.

YouTube promotes itself as the most popular online video community. Its owners say people watch two billion videos a day on their website. Hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded daily. Some of those videos are becoming a huge problem for law enforcement.

Captain Jon Scott of the Town of Tonawanda Police said, "What kid doesn't have access to the internet and isn't familiar with YouTube? And unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised if more people see this and try this incident because of what took place here."

Captain Scott is referring to a disturbing discovery in the Town of Tonawanda Thursday morning. A town worker at the Brighton Park Golf Course called police when a can in the trash exploded. These video clips on YouTube resemble the homemade devices police found here. They're also known as "bottle bombs."

Erie County Bomb Squad Commander Dan Walczak said, "Basically, it has a chemical reaction inside the pop-bottle causing the container to rupture."

Five were at the golf course and three more were on the field at the Green Acres building in the Ken-Ton School District.

"This is a situation where five individuals, young individuals, saw something that looked interesting on YouTube and tried to copy it," explained Captain Scott.

Fortunately, nobody was injured. But without knowing the details at the time, the school district went into lockdown.

Captain Scott urged, "Don't do it. You may see something on YouTube, you may try it, and it may not go the way it's supposed to."

The experts know from experience.

"Very dangerous. Not only do you have the separation of the container to deal with, you also have the caustic chemical inside, which you get it in your eyes, causes serious damage," warned Walczak.

Investigators won't go into much detail about the five individuals who were questioned, but they did tell News 4 they will find charges to apply in this case. Whether they're felony or misdemeanor charges will depend on the circumstances.