EDGEWATER — CTA train service and traffic in Edgewater was halted for more than two hours Saturday after a citizen found a fake pipe bomb near the station.
At 11:27 a.m., a man exiting the Bryn Mawr Red Line station, 1119 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., saw what appeared to be a bomb on the sidewalk and flagged down a sergeant from the Lincoln (20th) Police District, according to Chicago Police Officer Daniel Blackman, who was on the scene.
The device, which appeared to be made from plastic PVC pipe, had both ends taped closed with duct tape and had a wick in the middle of it. The device was on the sidewalk on near the Bryn Mawr street exit of the station.
Members of the Chicago Police Bomb Squad determined that it was a fake bomb and had no explosives inside it, but destroyed the device as a matter of procedure, police said.
“From the way it looked, if it was packed [with explosives] it would have done a lot of damage, Blackman said.
While investigating, police closed a two block stretch of Bryn Mawr Avenue and the CTA suspended Red Line service between Howard and Addison. During the shutdown, the CTA provided shuttle buses for commuters.
Once the device was determined to be fake, the station and area was checked by bomb squad members with bomb-sniffing dogs.
The street opened back up at 1:45 p.m. and CTA service resumed by 2 p.m.
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