PAYETTE, Idaho — A 40-year-old Idaho man has been arrested in connection with the discovery of an improvised explosive device attached to a railcar in the town of Payette, the Idaho Stateman reports.
Brent Sharrai of Payette was arrested on New Year’s Day after police followed footprints through fresh snow leading from the railcar, which had what police called an unexploded “pipe-bomb-style device” of PVC plastic attached to a step. Police had received a report of a suspicious person “attempting to light something on fire” near the railcar.
Union Pacific was contacted and held rail traffic through the area for five hours. The Nampa Police Department bomb squad used a robot to remove the device and detonate it, the Payette Police Department said.
Sharrai, originally booked into the Payette County Jail on outstanding misdemeanor warrants, was later charged with felony possession of a destructive device and felony possession of a controlled substance, as well as misdemeanors for possession of drug paraphernalia and resisting arrest. Additional chargers are pending while the FBI continues its investigation.
Payette Police Chief Gary Marshall told the newspaper that Sharrai said he was “just trying to make a loud explosion or loud boom. He said he did not have any intentions of damaging property or harming anyone.”
Payette is on UP’s Huntington Subdivision, about 48 miles northwest of Nampa, Idaho, and just east of the Oregon state line along the Snake River.
“Union Pacific was contacted and held rail traffic through the area for five hours. “Anyone in Pecos, TX involved in that derailment and deaths reading this?
“police followed footprints through fresh snow leading from the railcar” to where?
federal jail time, it is a federal regulated industry interstate transportation.