"Explosive Device" Defused In San Francisco Starbucks

AP reports that “Police defused an explosive device” found in the bathroom of a Starbucks at 1401 Van Ness Ave in San Francisco on Monday. No one was injured:

Authorities were called around 1:15 p.m., after an employee reported finding something suspicious in the store’s bathroom. About 100 people were evacuated from the store and apartments above it, and the street was closed to traffic, said Sgt. Neville Gittens.

“This was a good device. If it had exploded, it would have caused injuries or damage,” said Gittens, who would not describe its size.

Once the device was disabled at about 2:10 p.m., police allowed people back into the apartment building and reopened the street. The store, located at a busy city intersection, remained closed Monday evening while authorities investigated.

Seattle-based Starbucks declined to provide further details.

In 2003, police said the windows of 17 Starbucks stores were clouded with glue and some of the door locks were jammed. Vandals also posted phony notices purporting to be from Starbucks management announcing the company’s intention to abandon some of their San Francisco stores to make room for more locally owned coffee houses.

This local CBS report adds, “Gittens said police are following ‘some pretty good leads’ but have not yet identified any suspects. He said the Starbucks had not received any bomb threats”.

As the AP report above hints, Starbucks has been under near-constant threat from anti-globalists in Seattle and other large urban cities. While most of their action has involved rioting and the odd smashed Starbucks window, a separate faction of the anti-global crowd was also responsible for a bomb which destroyed a Paris McDonald’s in 2000, killing a 28-year old breakfast shift worker.

But please note this is pure speculation and that anything’s possible, including simply a disgruntled employee.

Update: Michelle Malkin has some thoughts as well; one of her readers adds:

Once again, left-wing terrorism and violence gets a pass in the MSM. The [San Francisco Chronicle] was equally coy when left-wing terrorist groups like ELF exploded devices at Emeryville’s Chiron headquarters. But if a right-wing anti-abortion group placed a pipe bomb at a Planned Parenthood office, you wouldn’t see such vague “vandals” descriptions.

Which is another example of how the liberal media cocoon actually does their main readers a disservice: by playing down eco-terrorists and WTO vandals instead of vigorously condemning them, it makes it that much easier for conservatives to lump the whole lot together with the rest of the left.

Late Update (1/15/06): Well, this story’s taken a turn for the weird: what police and reporters suspected was a bomb, actually was a flashlight owned by a homeless man with apparent drug issues?!