A Broward, Florida sheriff building was evacuated over a grenade.
A woman brought a grenade into Broward sheriff’s office district 19 and left it on a chair, causing the entire building to be evacuated after 3pm on Friday. The woman had found the grenade in her house and brought it to the station in an attempt to get rid of it. The grenade had belonged to her late husband.
At the time that she brought it in the substation, authorities did not know whether it was real or live, but treated it as a worst case scenario.
According to the Miami Herald , Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue spokesman Mike Jachles commented:
“She found it in the house and didn’t know what to do. She put it down on a chair, and when we saw exactly what it was, we evacuated the building and left it there.”
One of Broward’s bomb squads used a robot to dispose of the grenade . They discovered the grenade had been altered, but the police treated it like it was live. The robot picked up the grenade and took it out of the building, where technicians disposed of it in an unpopulated area of Broward.
The evacuation and disposal of the grenade had taken several hours. Safe disposal of what could have been a fully explosive device required extensive safety measures. According to NBC Miami , there were 10 people working in the building at the time.
The woman who had brought the grenade into the building had not known what she was doing, and as such has not been charged with a crime.
Mike Jackles urges everyone to be safe and understand how to handle these situations:
“If you find something like a grenade or an old mortar, don’t touch it. Don’t take it to the police station or the fire station. Leave it where it is and call the authorities.”
What do you think about the Broward sheriff’s office building being evacuated over a grenade?
via miami herald MiamiHerald: In case you missed it: Grenade empties Broward sheriff’s building. A woman walked… dlvr.it/31rlc1
— Jay Veancie(@JayVeancie) March 2, 2013
