Records: Phone failed to trigger bomb outside police station
DENVER — A man suspected of leaving a backpack bomb outside a police station in a small Colorado mountain town tried several times to remotely detonate the homemade device using a cellphone but failed, according to court documents released Monday.
David Michael Ansberry, 64, of San Rafael, California, was arrested this weekend in Chicago after surveillance video captured him at the stores where he bought the cellphones that he expected to trigger the explosive in the town of Nederland, investigators said.
He was easily recognizable because he is 3 feet 6 inches tall and 100 pounds and wore a ponytail, a ball cap and using crutches. The Nederland police chief told investigators he spotted a man matching Ansberry’s description leaving a hotel as it was being evacuated during the Oct. 11 bomb scare.
Ansberry was charged with a federal explosives count. U.S. Justice Department counterterrorism prosecutors are handling the case. Court documents don’t indicate a motive.