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Explosive situation defused after grenade turns up in Rogue River By SANNE SPECHT for the Mail Tribune ROGUE RIVER - Presidents' Day had been a quiet shift for police Chief Ken Lewis until a woman walked into his office and announced she had a hand grenade in her car. Judy K. Thompson, a resident of Wards Creek, said she was cleaning a recently vacated house at 3054 Wards Creek Road when she found the grenade in the yard. She picked up the grenade, put it in her car and drove to the middle of town at about 2 p.m. Lewis walked to the van, which was parked on Broadway Street near the Ace Hardware store, and looked inside. Sitting on the front passenger seat on a towel was the grenade. Lewis immediately called the Jackson County bomb squad and began evacuating the hardware store and cordoning off a danger zone of about 200 feet - the radius of a hand grenade's impact. Detective Eric Fox arrived at the scene within 10 minutes. In the area on another assignment, Fox quickly assessed that the grenade was live. "It was military issue," he said Tuesday. "Probably stolen from a military base. I'd say the grenade was at least as recent as the Vietnam War." After the grenade was deemed safe for transport, Fox removed it to his vehicle. Fox won't say where the grenade was eventually dispatched. Thompson was unavailable for comment, but both Lewis and Fox said the woman was clearly upset by the incident. "She was shaking when she realized what could have happened," Lewis said. "We were lucky the whole thing was over in about an hour and no one was injured." Fox said it is illegal to possess a hand grenade in Oregon. But he said no charges will be filed against Thompson or the previous tenants of the property, nor would there be further inspection at the site. "I'm certain if she (Thompson) found anything else, she'd call first before she brought it in - as we suggest everyone do," said Fox. "It doesn't make any sense to take something explosive from an area of non-population to an area of high population." Lewis agreed. "We're not members of the bomb squad," he said. "If anyone finds an explosive device, they should assume it's live, leave it alone and call the Jackson County Sheriff's Department." Sanne Specht is a free-lance writer living in Rogue River. E-mail her at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.