San Francisco -- A backpack full of Molotov cocktails was found Friday where anti-war demonstrators had earlier been dodging San Francisco police, and authorities said they suspected a protester of stashing the explosive devices.
About a dozen bottles filled with gasoline and equipped with makeshift fuses were discovered at 10 a.m. by a developmentally disabled man who was tending a planter box on the corner of 11th and Howard streets, near an outreach center.
The weapons, which are designed to explode when the gasoline fumes hit the lit fuse after the bottle is broken, were probably hidden in the bushes by a demonstrator Thursday night, police said. No one, however, was immediately arrested in connection with the find.
The man who found the explosives brought them to a friend who works around the corner at a printing plant. The man, Carl Hester, 43, immediately realized the danger and called police.
"Peace protesting with Molotov cocktails?" Hester said angrily after police had cordoned off the area and sent in hazardous materials specialists. "What . . . is that?"
Lt. Larry Minasian said most of the weapons were fashioned out of beer bottles, but one quart-size bottle may have been an olive oil container. They were wrapped in newspaper and rags and stuffed with a wrench in a black backpack.
Minasian said they were probably stashed when riot police swept through to break up roving groups of protesters in the area.
"Molotov cocktails are extremely dangerous," Minasian said. "Flammable gasoline is almost like napalm. These are created to hurt people or cause significant damage."
Hester, who works in shipping and receiving at Biss Printing Inc. on Natoma Street, said stashing explosives where developmentally disabled people are likely to find them is worse than shameful.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/22/MN285779.DTL