Customer built bomb in Iowa sushi restaurant, then called cops on himself, say police

Ivory Washington placed a call to Des Moines police Tuesday night to report that someone was building a bomb inside Akebono 515, a downtown sushi restaurant.

That someone was him, according to WHO TV in Des Moines.

“It was legit. When they tested it to see if it would explode, it did,” Sgt. Paul Parizek of the Des Moines Police Department said at a press conference, according to KCCI.

“He gave us a story where he is extremely frustrated with our world today and believes that people don’t take these types of threats seriously. So he was going to make a point that he could sit somewhere and construct a device and hopefully somebody would call the police.”

When no one called 911, Washington did it himself, Parizek said. At first, according to KCCI, Washington claimed that the device was fake.

The restaurant’s owner told the Des Moines Register that he saw Washington going from table to table and plugging something into electrical outlets around the place.

“I thought (he was charging) his phone,” Nam Tran told the newspaper. “I wasn’t close enough to see.”

Washington built the explosive out of “various items inside a sealed container,” according to the Register, which reviewed online court records.

Parizek told reporters that anyone within a 25-foot radius would have been injured, and anyone as close as 10 feet would have died if the bomb had gone off, KCCI reported. He urged people to call the police when they see things that look suspicious.

Washington is in Polk County Jail on a $25,000 bond, charged with possession of explosive or incendiary material with intent, according to Polk County Sheriff’s records.