An explosion shook a usually serene downtown Japanese garden Monday as police destroyed a suspicious device that they say a man falsely claimed was a bomb while trying to rob a nearby business.

With downtown traffic blocked and neighbors evacuated, officers from an Overland Park bomb squad blasted the device about 2:45 p.m. as it sat on a park bench inside the Japanese Friendship Garden in the 1000 block of Massachusetts Street.

Police said later that the device, which appeared to be a compact-disc player wrapped in duct tape with wires sticking out, was a hoax.

“It looked credible enough that they did not want to move it, and that’s why they detonated it in the park,” said Sgt. Dan Ward, a spokesman for the Lawrence Police Department.

The nearly three-hour episode began about noon when the suspect, a 27-year-old Lawrence man, walked into Blackbird Trading Post, 1011 1/2 Mass., wearing thick gloves and a jacket, pretending to be deaf and unable to speak. He began communicating by writing notes to co-proprietor Bonnie Aoki, who was working behind the counter.

He wrote that he wanted to see a $250 steel guitar hanging on the wall behind her. Aoki said she gave it to him, and he wrote on the paper, “I’ll take it.”

Then he pulled the device from his pocket and placed it on the counter. He wrote on the paper, “This is a bomb,” Aoki said.

Aoki stared at it.

“I wasn’t scared, for some reason,” she said. “I thought it was all too goofy.”

Sgt. Jeff Hobson with the Overland Park Police Department, left, is assisted by an unidentified law enforcement officer as he puts on his protective bomb gear before disarming a wired device on a bench in the Japanese Friendship Garden just north of Watkins Community Museum of History, 1047 Mass.

After about 20 seconds of silence, Aoki said, the man reached up and pushed a button on the device.

“I thought if we’re going to blow up, I might as well get 911 over here,” Aoki said. “He saw me dial 911, and he grabbed his bomb and out the door he went … I’m thinking, ‘I’m glad he took it with him.'”

The man ran south on Massachusetts Street and walked into the garden just south of Papa Keno’s Pizzeria, 1035 Mass. By telephone, Aoki guided Lawrence police to the suspect.

Officers found him in the park, along with items of clothing and the suspicious device. They arrested him on suspicion of attempted aggravated robbery.

6News video: Bomb squad explodes suspicious device in Lawrence’s downtown (7-12-04)

Police blocked off access to the garden and called in an explosive ordnance disposal team from the Overland Park Police Department.

The team arrived about 1:30 p.m. Police later evacuated Papa Keno’s and blocked people from driving or walking past the park.

The device detonated Monday by the Overland Park bomb squad is shown on a bench in the Japanese Friendship Garden in the 1000 block of Massachusetts Street.

As an ambulance stood by, Sgt. Jeff Hobson of Overland Park donned a thick protective suit and helmet and walked into the garden from the adjoining alleyway carrying a device attached to a cord. Moments after he emerged, police set off an explosion intended to “disrupt” the device, Hobson said.

Hobson said security concerns prohibited him from giving more details of the operation.

The suspect was booked into the Douglas County Jail but had not been charged by Monday evening.