By Forrest Adams

Two 15-year-old males were taken into custody in Excelsior early last Saturday morning after police officers responded to a call of suspicious activity outside St. John the Baptist Catholic School, 638 Mill St., and Church.

The call into the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department was made around 3 a.m. by an off-duty police officer on his way home.

SLMPD Officer John Wareham was the first on the scene shortly thereafter. According to a press release, Wareham heard what sounded like firecrackers and then observed two juvenile males flee on foot to a wooded area behind the school.

In checking where they had been, he discovered a pellet gun, fireworks and marijuana on the ground along with a homemade incendiary explosive device (IED) that had not yet been detonated, according to the press release. It was propped on the door handle to a storage area next to the school entrance.

Wareham searched the area on foot and located both suspects in some bushes behind the school. SLMPD Sgt. Mark Geyer assisted with taking both suspects, one from Excelsior and the other from Eden Prairie, into custody.

They were transported to the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department detention facility and interviewed by Detective Sgt. Steve Neururer. According to Neururer, both suspects admitted to their roles concerning the manufacturing and placement of the explosive device. Neururer said the suspects were cooperative and gave him no reason to believe they were targeting the school specifically. The two are not suspected of any similar incidents in Excelsior, and Neururer said he thinks the suspects acted alone.

“They were going to blow up something,” Neururer said. “Luckily, they weren’t able to.”

The area was quarantined off with police line tape. Sgt. Geyer then contacted the Minneapolis Police Department Bomb Squad. They decided to send two bomb technicians to the scene, given the potential danger posed by the IED. The two bomb technicians used a robot and other means to safely disable and secure the IED. Disabling the explosive took about an hour, said Neururer.

After their interview, the suspects were booked at the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center in Minneapolis on the felony level charges of possessing/manufacturing an explosive device and possessing a dangerous weapon on school property.

Neururer subsequently executed a search warrant at the Excelsior home where one of the suspects resides and recovered some additional materials used for manufacturing homemade incendiary explosive devices.

Readers can contact Forrest Adams at fadams@swpub.com.