Pikesville Nighttime Explosion Mystery Solved

For years, neighbors in Pikesville, a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, had been distrubed by a big boom and a flash of light in the middle of the night:

"The bedroom actually lights up like day," says Elaine O’Mansky, who lives in the Stevenson Commons condominium building near Beth Tfiloh. "It’s instantaneous and wakes us up out of a very deep sleep."

She isn’t alone. Barbara Friedman is Homeowner’s Association president for the area. She was up late one night sweeping her back patio when she heard the boom. "I hit the deck," Friedman explained. "It was so loud, I thought I was being shot. I literally hit the deck."

After she realized she hadn’t been shot, she started emailing other homeowners to see if they heard it too. "Then my email got flooded because hundreds of people were hearing these noises and thought it was their imagination," she said. (Source)

Turns out, it was a disgruntled man who decided to piss of his neighbors by setting off fireworks at 2 a.m. in the morning! The police caught him after setting up a video camera to record the bang:

"After actually evaluating this videotape, the bomb unit technician was almost able to pinpoint the exact condominium where this was actually coming from," said Cpl Mike Hill with Baltimore County Police.

That’s how police met Mackler, who apparently confessed to creating the disturbance. Inside his home, investigators found quantities of drugs, guns and fireworks. Police say he had been having problems with neighbors in the building.

"He would get up in the middle of the morning, around 2 a.m., fire one of these pyrotechnic devices and be done," Hill said.

Derek Valcourt of WJZ reports: Link – via reddit