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WEST VALLEY CITY — A man vying for a seat in the Utah House of Representatives reported finding an apparent explosive device under a vehicle at his home after it detonated, creating a loud bang and smoke, earlier this month.
West Valley City police opened the investigation after Robert Burch, president of Utah’s chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society and Democratic Party candidate for Utah’s House District 30, filed a report regarding the incident on June 2.
Speaking to reporters about the incident nearly two weeks later, Burch said he isn’t sure if it was an attempted attack on his campaign or because of the color of his skin — or if it was a joke that someone thought would be funny. The incident remains baffling to him.
"I’ve gone through a lot of things in my life where we’ve had people with ill will towards me, my family and other people, but I think that was just a product of the times. Unfortunately, I just think right now, we’re dealing with that same kind of feelings from that time, the ‘60s and the ‘70s, when so much of this was going on; otherwise, I can’t say why anyone would do it," he said Saturday.
"Whether they thought it was a practical joke and it would be funny, or whether they just thought that they could hurt someone or damage the car and send some kind of message, I don’t know who would do that."
Burch said he and his wife, Alice, were doing work in their yard that day and were going to take their car to a neighbor’s home where they were helping with gravel for the project. Alice Burch pulled the vehicle out of the driveway and stopped to allow him to open the vehicle’s tailgate. That’s when there was a loud boom followed by a cloud of white smoke that surrounded the vehicle, Robert Burch said.
"It was very loud," he said, adding that neighbors a few houses down came to check on what had happened. "It really frightened my wife a lot. She said, ‘What’s happening?’ And I told her I think we lost a flat or something like that. But when I started walking around the car, I couldn’t find anything that was wrong with it."
Alice Burch then spotted a small package underneath the driver's side of the vehicle. They both dismissed it and she moved the car, where they spotted some sort of material on the ground. Robert Burch said it was a small tubular object about a half-foot long with the front part torn off. The mysterious item looked like it had just exploded, he added.
They couldn’t figure out what the item was, so they collected all the pieces they could find, including some cloth, wiring and broken plastic parts, and took them to a nearby mechanic and then a car dealership. When experts said they had no idea what the item was and that it wasn’t a piece of the vehicle, he went to the West Valley City Police Department to file a report.
No injuries or damage were reported. Robert Burch said he believes it was an explosive device; he said as someone who has worked on cars and also a military veteran, he knows what "little, small explosions look like."
"We just assumed that after we took it down (to mechanics) and no one could explain to us what it was that someone had attached something to the car," he said. "The loud bang and all of the white smoke that came from underneath the car — it’s the only thing we could think that it was."
West Valley City police confirmed they had cloth and plastic pieces that were turned over as evidence. Detectives were dispatched to the Burch home where they found "small white burn marks" in the driveway, according to police. Both Robert and Alice Burch provided statements to police.
Officials added that the neighborhood was canvassed but no cameras were found that may have captured any of the incident. Robert Burch said he believes it likely would have been attached to the vehicle the night before the incident.
Rep. Mike Winder, the Republican incumbent House District 30 representative that Robert Burch is seeking to unseat, called the incident "horrible" in a tweet Saturday after Burch went public about it.
"Robert (and) Alice Burch are two of the nicest people in our city and my heart goes out to them," Winder tweeted.
The incident was reported a few days after protests against police violence began across Utah and elsewhere in the world. The protests, sparked by the death of George Floyd, have continued almost daily since they began.
Robert Burch said he would be disappointed if the incident he reported was in any way a malicious attempt to hurt him or his family.
"I would hope that someone would not want to hurt someone else during this," he said. "The whole idea we have in these last couple of weeks of protests in Salt Lake City, and around the country, is that we’re concerned about people being hurt.
"We’re trying to create a situation where people feel good and feel safe and feel comfortable in their own neighborhoods, their own places of work and their own places of worship," he added. "Doing something like this does not create that."
Contributing: Adam Sotelo, KSL TV
