WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- The investigation into an upstate New York man accused of making threats against a school and federal agents, and who police said they found in possession of a homemade bomb, leads to Westmoreland County.
Police in Hudson Falls, N.Y., said officers arrested Jason Babson, 29, Saturday morning in connection with the alleged threats and the discovery of a homemade bomb.
The New York police said the bomb that officers allegedly found with Babson was made of black powder and had two sources of ignition, and they said Babson threatened CIA agents and said he would blow up a school on the Fourth of July.
Babson, a geologist, sometimes works in Monroeville and rents a house in Washington Township -- 223 miles away from Hudson Falls. On Tuesday, WTAE Channel 4 Action News reported seeing a car with New York license plates was in the driveway of the Westmoreland County house with protective goggles on the trunk.
On the Fourth of July Saturday, local police, the Allegheny County Bomb Squad and ATF agents searched the Washington Township home and closed the street.
WTAE Channel 4's news-exchange partner, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, reported that authorities removed from the house boxes filled with illegal incendiary components. Authorities also found a police uniform from the Hudson Falls Police Department.
"Babson never worked for us. We really have no idea why he had a uniform. This is very puzzling and we're very concerned about it," Hudson Falls, N.Y., Police Chief Randy Diamond said.
The New York authorities said they do not have any uniforms missing, but they want this one back. They said it remained a mystery where the uniform came from.
Babson remained held in jail in Hudson Falls charged by local police with a possible indictment pending from federal authorities.
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