PACOIMA : LAPD Foothill Station Evacuated in TNT Scare
The Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division station and a nearby business were evacuated for an hour and a half Wednesday after a concerned citizen brought in what he mistakenly believed was TNT, authorities said.
About 30 officers and employees were evacuated at 3 p.m. when a man, who said he was a military veteran, brought to the station in the 12700 block of Osborne Street an envelope of a substance he found in a supposedly inert mortar shell, said police Sgt. Patricia Gerst.
The man said he found the substance in a mortar shell that was being sold at the nearby Surplus City store and that it was highly explosive, Gerst said.
The surplus store on Sheldon Street also was evacuated.
Explosives experts who examined the substance described it as a packing wax used in the assembly of mortar shells, which they said is not dangerous.
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