Suspicious Device Resembling Pressure Cooker Shuts Down I-80 Overpass

SOLANO COUNTY, CA – Police have shut down a street in Vacaville after a suspicious device resembling a pressure cooker was found on the roadway under an Interstate Highway 80 overpass this morning, a city spokesman said.

This morning in San Francisco, a suspicious device reported at a San Francisco Municipal Railway bus stop at a busy intersection turned out to be some sort of rice cooker, police said. Officers shut down several nearby streets and the department's bomb squad responded to investigate.

The device in Solano County Near I-80 was found on Mason Street between Peabody Road and Depot Street between 10 a.m. and 10:15 a.m., Vacaville city spokesman Mark Mazzaferro said.

All lanes of eastbound and westbound Mason Street near the I-80 overcross are closed, Vacaville police said.

Napa Sheriff's Department Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) team is on the scene evaluating the suspicious device, according to Vacaville police.

Mazzaferro said the device reportedly resembles a pressure cooker.

The rice cooker (see photo) found in San Francisco was at a bus stop near a Goodwill Store.

Police shut down everything within a two-block radius while they investigated.

At 9:10 a.m., investigators determined the device was some sort of rice cooker and deemed it harmless, police
spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak said.

The device initially appeared to possibly be some sort of pressure cooker bomb and Andraychak acknowledged San Francisco police are on alert because of a similar type of bomb that exploded in New York City last weekend, injuring dozens of people.

He said investigators do not know if the device was left there as a prank or by accident. He said there is a Goodwill store located nearby and the bus stop is in an area with a sizable homeless population.

Both incidents follow the pressure-bomb explosion in New York Saturday night that injured 29 people. Law enforcement officials from the local to federal levels, since 9/11, have emphasized, "If you see something, say something."

--Patch will update when more information is released.

--Bea Karnes and Bay City News contributed to this report/Images courtesy Vacaville PD/Tara Moriarty/ KTVU