An improvised explosive device was set off between a home and a parked car on a residential street in Oregon, resulting in multiple windows shattered and damage to the exterior of the house.
Officers were called to the scene of a McMinnville, Oregon, residence around 2:45 a.m. to respond to a complaint from a 911 caller who said she believed an explosion had occurred under her car.
According to KPTV, an investigation determined that someone had either placed or thrown an IED between the sidewalk and the side of the victim’s residence.
A police statement further described that the device shot shrapnel and created a small crater in the flower bed near the sidewalk, toward the victim’s house.
The blast from the device also blew out the passenger-side windows of a car parked along the street near the house. As well, three of the residential windows at the home were shattered. The siding of the residence was damaged with dozens of visible scratches, dents, and entire chucks missing.
Police said that no one was injured as a result of the explosion and they are still investigating.
“I’m a little bit in shock. I can’t believe that this happened to us,” said Brianna, who lives at the house with her family. “I instantly told my family like, oh my gosh, get downstairs. I ran outside to my car [and] I saw the windows broken out,” she told KGW News.
An improvised explosive device is an “unconventional explosive weapon that can take any form and be activated in a variety of ways,” according to NATO.
An IED typically has some form of detonation charge attached to an explosive material, accompanied by an array of objects to act as shrapnel. This could include nails, ball bearings, or even simple household objects such as kitchen utensils. When traveling at a high speed, nearly any object can fatal.
The bombs can be set off by an attached detonator or by remote signal initiated by a cell phone or radio signal.
Bomb-defusing robots are often used to disarm or dispose of such ordinance.
McMinnville is a town in northwest Oregon with a population of approximately 35,000 residents.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!