Pleasant Hill police arrested two juveniles suspected of using illegal fireworks that started a grass fire Wednesday near Diablo Valley College.
Two 16-year-olds allegedly threw a tennis ball-sized explosive mortar from a moving vehicle on Golf Club Road. The resulted fire burned a quarter-acre of grass and trees before being extinguished by firefighters.
The device was designed to be detonated in a special launching tube, though it exploded without the tube on the ground, spraying sparks in all directions. Contra Costa County Fire Protection District officials said the fire could’ve spread to nearby homes if weather conditions were less favorable.
A witness saw the juveniles fleeing the scene near Contra Costa Boulevard and Doray Drive and called police. Officers arrested the two 16-year-old Pleasant Hill residents, who were questioned and later released into their parents’ custody.
Fire investigators said they will refer the case to prosecutors for likely charges of unlawful fire and possession of fireworks. The suspects will likely be referred to the fire district’s youth fire setter program.
The incident follows another fire allegedly set last week in the Vine Hill neighborhood also caused by juveniles.
Fire district officials say they want to remind the public that fireworks, even those marked “safe and sane,” are dangerous and illegal in Contra Costa County. Anyone who sees people using fireworks can anonymously call the department’s arson hotline at (866) 50-ARSON (27766).
well their teachers are teaching them to be anarchists
and the DA is ok with that and will not file charges
move along
@RANDOM TASK
You do realise its the parent’s responsibility, or did you forget what’s been happening on a global scale?
Do not go and blame a person who has nothing to do with the way you raise your own kids. The fact that the parent or legal guardian of the kids has more or less needed to stay home in all this time to teach or be around, get to know their own kids ( givin whats been going on ) gives no cause or excuse for a parent, any parent not to PARENT. Parents have been home more or less for over a year and in all time they fail to have or make a little time to see how their kids have been doing mentally or emotionally is their FAULT, stop electing complete strangers to raise YOUR kids and do it your damn self.
Your responsible for raising an “anarchist” in this case not a teacher, not the bus driver or another person’s parent, YOU.
I’m pretty sure anyone who would even think to say what you did is just as bad…..if not worse than the parent involved.
In other word’s stop pointing the finger and playing the blame game adults are not 3 years old anymore.
@ trubordum…. a parent can teach and Be there and teach there kids with all they have but kids make mistakes, if your not a parent you have no idea and if you are and your kids haven’t made a dumb ass mistake good for you! But I on the other hand know that truth be told kids from the strictest and finest of parents will still make a bad decision that sometimes can be a very big mistake! Parents have to at one point not be there every second and depending on poor decisions or peers doing idiotic things we can only hope they make the right decision but blaming the parents as not being parents when you don’t know them is ignorance.
@A
you hide the truth with your half lies, parents are responsible for their children that is how are legal system works and if parents love their children then that is how a parent behaves. otherwise why have the kid in the first place, tax break?
while a parent cannot be there 100% of the time, they have to engage with their children.
hopefully with your implication that no one is responsible for children, you are not a parent.
Can we just outlaw mortar tubes for God’s sake?
Burn their fingers with matches.
fireworks can be heard going off in the vicinity of Bancroft/ Ygnacio valley rd the last few nights..They won’t be so lucky next time it happens.
That is not close to an accident. It is even cowardly beside stupid. I would put them in a stock and give them about twenty lashes on the back. Charge them for the fire department’s time.
I am that witness. You are all welcome Pleasant Hill. Good work PHPD for getting them with the evidence
Were one of these twerps driving or were they just passengers? If one was driving they should Suspend their drivers licenses until they are 18. Then take them both for a field trip to the house that burned down in Martinez last week as a result of kids playing with fire.
DA won’t do anything – I say 80 hrs of community service each emptying trash cans and cleaning sidewalks of gum, etc. …. how’s that?
I agree. Or maybe do the community service going around and giving presentations on the dangers of fireworks to other students. If this is their first offense, there’s no point in trying to give them a criminal record. It was something that could have turned into a very bad situation, but kids do stupid things and hopefully this will be a lesson to them and a lot of their friends that hear about it.