Bombs explode at Detroit distribution center p. 14

By: Editorial Staff THREE HOMEMADE BOMBS exploded at a Detroit Newspapers distribution center Sunday morning, Sept. 24. No one was injured and there was no significant property damage.
The bombing was condemned by leaders of the six unions who have been on strike since July 13 against the jointly produced Detroit Free Press and Detroit News.
The explosions came as strikers bulked up previously light picketing around the 20 distribution centers. Unions appeared to be targeting the distribution centers in reaction to a Sept. 13 court order limiting to 10 the number of pickets allowed at the main gate of Detroit Newspapers' main production facility in Sterling Heights, Mich.
"It does seem like they have changed their strategy," said Susie Ellwood, vice president for market development of Detroit Newspapers.
Ellwood said that despite the bombing, more than a million copies of the combined Sunday News and Free Press were printed and distributed over the weekend.
Four bombs were involved in the incident at the distribution center. All were "pretty crude homemade devices with a quarter-stick of dynamite and a car battery with a fuse and nails stuck in them," Ellwood said.
Three of the devices exploded while a fourth was disarmed by the Detroit Police bomb squad.
Though workers were loading delivery vehicles nearby, no one was injured, Ellwood said.
Disruptions were reported at
another distribution site when pickets from a group of 250 strikers overturned an abandoned pickup truck at the center's entrance. The action temporarily turned back a semi-trailer until a tow truck removed the obstacle and police cleared pickets.
On Sept. 13, Macomb County (Mich.) Circuit Judge Raymond Cashen limited picketing at the main gate of the Sterling Heights production plant, an injunction the newspapers had sought for three weeks.
Three days after the injunction, about 450 pickets massed in front of the plant. Six pickets were arrested for refusing to move from the gate.