TRIPwire, 1 June 2021

On 26 May 2021, the Florence Police Department (FPD) and Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office responded to a residence in Underwood-Petersville after receiving reports of a man attacking family members. According to authorities, the 34-year-old suspect threw an improvised incendiary device (IID), described as a Molotov cocktail, at the home where his parents and three children live, fired several shots at his parents, and then attacked his brother and children with a machete. No injuries were reported from the IID, but the suspect’s brother and children received lacerations from the machete. After barricading himself in a shed on the property, the suspect was apprehended by FPD SWAT personnel. The suspect was arrested and has been charged with six counts of attempted murder. The investigation is ongoing.

TRIPwire, 1 March 2019
On 27 February 2019, a 45-year-old man was arrested for planning to blow up his mother with a victim-operated IED (VOIED) planted in a shed at their Jackson County home. The man’s mother called authorities concerned that he was on drugs, wouldn’t leave her house, and had stored a propane tank in the shed. When a Sheriff’s deputy and the mother entered the shed, the IED made with PVC pipe and gunpowder functioned, causing a small explosion. The propane tank was not turned on at the time of the explosion. The man confessed that the IED was supposed to detonate while his mother was in the shed earlier that day.

TRIPwire, 20 March 2019
On 19 March 2019, Dale County Sheriff’s Office investigators found a pipe bomb inside a duffle bag collected as evidence for an ongoing homicide investigation. The device was found after the duffle bag was brought into the Sheriff’s Office for examination. The Dale County Sheriff’s Office and Ozark-Dale County E-911 Center were evacuated while the Dothan Bomb and Explosives Devices Unit responded to the scene and rendered safe the device. No injuries were reported. There is no further information on the device.

TRIPwire, 26 February 2019
On 26 February 2019, a 44-year-old male will be arraigned on Federal charges for detonating an IED in the work truck of another man in Dothan in October 2017. According to authorities, the suspect possessed two IEDs—one was described as a galvanized steel pipe that contained bullets, and a low explosive main charge. According to court documents. The other device was a directional focused fragmentation charge described as having a similar low explosives main charge mixed with irregular flattened ball smokeless powder in an aluminum tube with one open end contained a lead shot fragmentation. Authorities have not shared a motive for the alleged crime.