“It was a real bomb, I saw all the parts,” said Cavalry Baptist member Dennis Llewellyn, who said he was outside the church when the explosive went off. Llewellyn said he was a former special forces member with the Marines and recognized bomb parts that included an Eveready battery. He and fellow church member Mike Stewart kept churchgoers arriving for the 8:30 a.m. service from going into the building during the five to 10 minutes it took for police to arrive. Stewart was the one to notice the debris and damaged mailbox, the two men said.

LAS CRUCES  Explosions about a half hour apart shattered the serenity of morning services at two Las Cruces churches Sunday, but caused no injuries and only minor damage, police said.

Police spokesman Dan Trujillo said they are still investigating explosions that happened near Calvary Baptist Church, 1800 S. Locust, shortly after 8 a.m. and Holy Cross Catholic Church, 1327 N. Miranda, about a half hour later.

The explosion at Holy Cross took place in a trash can just outside the entrance of the church as services for the 8 a.m. Mass were taking place.

Monsignor John Anderson had been in the part of the service where communion is passed.

“I was right in the middle of saying the words ‘take and eat, this is my body’ and there was a Pow! I mean, I knew it had to be more than a gunshot,” he said. “It didn’t know if it was a shotgun blast, I didn’t know what. But it was very loud and I just kept on saying the words.”

At the end of the Lord’s Prayer, the pastor sent a deacon to find out what had happened, and it was reported that a bomb had exploded in a trash can outside the front glass doors, shattering the thick glass.

“I had just received communion and had gotten back to my chair when the police came up and said we need everyone to leave out the doors calmly,” Sullivan said, saying police told parishioners. “We have it under control but we need you to leave the building.”

Services for later in the day were cancelled as police blocked off the streets surrounding the church to allow bomb-sniffing dogs to search the premises.

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