A loud explosion erupted from the bathroom in Village Books on Swarthmore Avenue shortly before 8 p.m. on Friday. After the bomb, made with chlorine tablets and alcohol, detonated, employees Mia Wigmore and Barbara Edelman began tearing from the fumes and discovered a device had been thrown through an open window, landed in the sink and blew up. The police were notified, but did not initially investigate. Later that evening Wigmore started throwing up and Edelman went to the emergency room. Village Books owner Katie O’Laughlin called the police on Saturday and the bomb squad responded, closing off portions of Swarthmore and Monument. The damage to the building was minimal, but the store was closed for several hours on Saturday during the investigation. ‘The worst part was the nightmare of imagining what could’ve happened,’ O’Laughlin said. ‘It could have blinded someone or severely burned them.’ A mailbox explosion on Embury on Saturday led to the arrest of two juveniles, who confessed to the Village Books incident. The two 13-year-old Palisades residents were arrested, handcuffed, fingerprinted, processed and booked on a felony charge. The boys have met with O’Laughlin and employees of Village Books to apologize and to seek other ways to make amends. Directions and videos about bomb-making are readily available on the Internet and You Tube. Many of the sites make the homemade bombs look harmless and do not warn about possible consequences to bystanders, which could include blindness, severe burns or even death. The Web sites do not inform readers that it is a felony to possess an explosive device.
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