A widow’s donation of her late husband’s belongings forced a Goodwill store in Arkansas to evacuate Friday after employees discovered two grenades inside a box.
Staff at the Jonesboro location on Caraway Road found the military ordnance around 1 p.m. while sorting through donated items, KAIT8 reported. Jonesboro Police Chief Rick Elliott told the station that crews responded after receiving a call about “a suspicious item.” (RELATED: Toddler’s Startling Discovery In Family’s Yard Triggers Bomb Squad Response)
“Employees were going through donation boxes and found what appeared to be a military-style ordinance,” Elliott said.
The police chief told KAIT8 that an elderly woman had gone through “her deceased husband’s belongings that he brought back from the war, put them all in a box, and brought them up here.” He added, “She didn’t know what was what.”
NEWS UPDATE: Police say a store found grenades in the donations after they say an elderly woman donated her husband’s war belongings.
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An Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit arrived from the Little Rock area to handle the situation. Elliott told KAIT8 that fire and EMS crews remained on standby while technicians secured the devices. The team later detonated the grenades, though Elliott said it remained unclear whether they were live.
Police identified the ordnance as likely dating to the World War II era, Jonesboro Right Now reported. Elliott told the outlet that veterans from those conflicts often brought home souvenirs.
“This is something we’ve seen many times before,” Elliott said. “A word of caution is, when you’re going through your loved one’s belongings, and you see things that are military in nature, some kind of grenade or ordinance round, whatever it could be, just leave it as is. Contact the police department and let us come and deal with it.”
Brandon Lamb, a shopper who arrived during the evacuation, praised the quick response.
“Anytime something like that happens, you get a grenade come through, you don’t want it to go off with all the citizens around,” Lamb said. “It’s a good thing that it got caught by personnel.”