Update 3: Transient Arrested After U-Haul Bomb Scare Near Police Station

Updated at 7:15 p.m. Thursday

An El Cajon car wash found its stolen U-Haul truck Thursday—but not until after it disrupted routines for several hours as police closed off University Avenue west of Spring Street for inspections by a bomb squad.

At 1 p.m., police removed orange cones set up to block access as authorities declared the area safe. The abandoned truck, with blinking lights, was parked 10 yards from the year-old La Mesa Police Station.

For nearly three hours, pedestrians and vehicles were directed to make detours around the site where the “suspicious vehicle” sat—across the street from American Legion Post 282, also home to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

Jason Wilson of Happy Car Wash & Oil Change at 126 W. Bradley Ave. told La Mesa Patch the business was broken into at 5 a.m. Saturday. A cash register was stolen, along with a key, and they noticed a U-Haul truck missing.

Wilson said he was told that the truck was found abandoned in La Mesa, but when he came to reclaim it, police told him he couldn't take it because a bomb might be in it.

A bomb squad member from the county Sheriff's Department drilled a hole into the side of the truck and inserted fiber-optics to view the interior, police said.

The staffer, dressed in a dark-green protective suit, later returned to the truck with a ladder and, using a rope, remotely opened the back of the truck. After observing the contents of the truck, authorities ended the bomb alert.

An outdoor command post set up under a blue tent was established in the parking lot east of the police station and City Hall.

According to Lt. Dan Willis, police were notified at 10:15 a.m. that a U-Haul truck was left abandoned at the curb in the 8000 block of University Avenue, near the front of the police station. 

“There is no legal parking on that street and witnesses observed the driver run away from the truck carrying two duffel bags,” Willis said.

Due to the suspicious nature of the circumstances, police blocked traffic on University Avenue between Spring Street and Baltimore Drive, he said. 

A bomb-sniffing canine from the Harbor Police and the San Diego Sheriff’s Department Bomb Arson team responded as well, he said. The Sheriff’s Department’s ASTREA helicopter also made several passes of the scene.

Meanwhile, the driver of the truck was found and detained four blocks away in the 8400 block of University Avenue, Willis said.

Damian Payne, 35, a transient, was arrested on suspicion of auto theft and possession of stolen property.