McCarthy: Bomb scare one of few intense moments during protests - Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News

McCarthy: Bomb scare one of few intense moments during NATO protests

This weekend's clashes between police and militant protesters included a few intense moments for police; one that the superintendent says involved a bomb scare.

According to Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy, just days after arresting three men for allegedly plotting to use Molotov cocktails during the NATO protest, police got another scare in the middle of the biggest demonstration of the weekend.

"Some sort of liquid that I don't have an analysis on it yet, I don't know if it was an incendiary device, but that's what the person claimed it was," Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said. "That was a little bit troubling, because obviously we were going to be the subjects of that."

Then there was the moment when McCarthy saw his men putting on gas masks.

"My mind suddenly raced and I realized, well, since I'm the person that has to authorize tear gas and I wasn't calling for tear gas, and our guys were putting on gas masks, the likelihood is we were about to get hit with tear gas and I said to myself, okay so I don't have a helmet but I can bob and weave and duck but the gas is really going to hurt," McCarthy said.

As it turns out, it was a miscommunication based on someone yelling out they saw a protester put on a gas mask.

McCarthy says the clashes police had were not with protesters, but in his words criminals, mostly out of town agitators there just for that reason. He says it was only after the Black Bloc charge at the start of the standoff that police used their Billy clubs.

"This is one of the rocks that whizzed by my head, this was my souvenir that I took from that incident on Cermak," McCarthy said.