A man threw a bomb near a Pacific Grove gas station last night; gets promptly arrested.

At approximately 9pm last night, as a tropical storm rained havoc on the California coast, a bomb went off in Pacific Grove. 

A statement released today by the Pacific Grove Police Department indicates that while an officer was on a routine patrol of the 1100 block of Forest Avenue, "he heard a loud bang and observed a person running toward him from the direction of a nearby hardware store and gas station. 

The person running toward officer Jay Haas was a witness, and told Haas that a man lit and threw an explosive device near the gas station. The witness relayed that when confronted, the man discarded another device that was still unlit.

Haas identified it as a "seal bomb," used by fishermen to scare off seals.

Haas then found the suspect, 28-year-old Pacific Grove resident Michael Harley Henderson, inside a nearby liquor store. Henderson admitted to detonating the first bomb and discarding the second, and was booked, arrested and later transported to the County Jail. 

Henderson is being charged with reckless of malicious possession of any destructive device, a felony, and discharging an explosive device within 100 feet of a gas station, a misdemeanor.