{"id":199060,"date":"2026-05-21T17:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/199060\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T17:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:48:13","slug":"2-men-charged-with-throwing-explosive-device-from-truck-in-catasauqua-were-father-and-son-da-says-son-still-not-in-custody-lehigh-valley-regional-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/199060\/","title":{"rendered":"2 men charged with throwing explosive device from truck in Catasauqua were father and son, DA says, son still not in custody | Lehigh Valley Regional News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CATASAUQUA, Pa. &#8211; The Lehigh County District Attorney&#8217;s Office said the two men charged after an\u00a0explosive device was thrown from a vehicle near an Election Day polling place in Catasauqua Tuesday are father and son, and that the son is not yet in custody.<\/p>\n<p>District Attorney Gavin Holihan discussed the charges in a news conference Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>56-year-old Matthew Pletz and 24-year-old Jack Pletz were charged for allegedly throwing that explosive device from a truck. That polling place turned into a crime scene Tuesday at the Salem United Church of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>Nobody was injured in the incident.<\/p>\n<p>Matthew Pletz and Jack Pletz have each been charged with multiple felonies for allegedly detonating the explosive Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Matthew Pletz has his preliminary hearing scheduled for May 26. Jack Pletz is not yet in custody, and there is a warrant out for his arrest, Holihan said in\u00a0Thursday&#8217;s news conference.<\/p>\n<p>Anybody who knows Jack\u00a0Pletz&#8217;s whereabouts should call 911 or Pennsylvania State Police, Holihan said. Do not approach\u00a0Jack Pletz if you see him,\u00a0Holihan said.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Pa. State Police: No info exists to show &#x2018;explosive device&#x2019; thrown from vehicle in Catasauqua was related to polling location\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6a0cf4893d53d.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"113\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                    WFMZ-TV | Jenny McCain<\/p>\n<p>Holihan said Jack Pletz is 5-foot-5 and weighs 180 pounds.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities do not have any insight at this time into a possible motive, said Holihan.<\/p>\n<p>When police searched their truck after the incident, they found 17 more explosive devices inside,\u00a0Holihan said.<\/p>\n<p>The district attorney said, at this point, there is no evidence to suggest the polling place\/church was targeted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CATASAUQUA, Pa. &#8211; The Lehigh County District Attorney&#8217;s Office said the two men charged after an\u00a0explosive device was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,31,805],"class_list":["post-199060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-crime","tag-lehighvalley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}