Suspected bomb thrown into Merrionette Park tobacco shop turns out to be fake

Michael Manning likes Tobacco City in southwest suburban Merrionette Park so much, you’ll find him there four to five days a week.

He likes the owners. He likes the other customers. And he likes to pull up a chair and work through the Chicago Sun-Times crossword puzzles.

That’s what Manning, a retired electrician from Oak Lawn, was doing Wednesday about 5:30 p.m., when someone opened the front door and tossed in a suspected pipe bomb. It landed two feet from him.

Manning can’t hear too well, but other customers said the tube was “beeping.”

Manning leaped up out of his chair.

“My temptation was to get the hell away from it,” he said.

Someone else who was in the strip-mall store, at 3281 W. 115th St., grabbed the device and tossed it back outside. Police arrived, and then summoned the fire department and the Cook County Bomb Squad, which eventually exploded the device — a fake, police said.

At least one suspect, wearing a hood, was seen on surveillance footage at the strip mall, and another suspect may also be on the run, police said Wednesday night. Police had no information Thursday about any possible arrests.

Authorities didn’t know if the shop was targeted, and there had been no known issues at the store before the incident, police said.

Manning, who was back working on his Sun-Times crossword puzzle Thursday, said he can’t imagine why anyone would target the store.

“I know the family that owns it — they are lovely people. It’s a wonderful group that comes in here. Everybody likes each other,” he said.

Manning said he saw two kids approach the store door just before the canister-like device landed at his feet.

They looked like they were barely into their teens, he said.

“Here’s the thing: It’s sad that in this world today, that it’s not so farfetched that a 14-year-old would throw a bomb,” he said. “That’s terribly sad about our state of affairs.”

Contributing: Nader Issa