Colorado man finds possible pipe bomb while walking his dog in Nederland

Residents in the Colorado community of Nederland sheltered in place for most of the day on Sunday after a possible pipe bomb was found by a man walking his dog on Sunday morning.

Ben Lauderdale and his dog, George, are in the middle of moving to a new home in Nederland. Lauderdale says he went to visit the neighborhood around 8 a.m. Sunday morning, when he found the briefcase on a residential road off Highway 72.

"Closed on the house on Tuesday. We moved in yesterday. Found the pipe bomb today," Lauderdale said, "I put one buckle back, and that went easy. Then the second one, I was like, this has kind of got some weight. And so I was like, I shouldn't open it, but I still did."

He says he backed away right away and called the Boulder County Sheriff's Office. First responders shut down the road for 11 hours. Just after noon, the Boulder County Sheriff's Office issued a shelter-in-place order near Ponderosa Way. Bomb squad technicians deployed a robot to handle the devices found inside the case.

The sheriff's office says the devices appeared to have the components of a functioning bomb. After an investigation, the bomb squad determined that the devices had the structure and components commonly used in pipe bombs, but they did not contain any explosive material, so they were not capable of detonating.

Officers are continuing to investigate how the briefcase got there and how long it was there.

"I was like, we should probably get away. And George came up and smelled it, and I was trying to get him away," Lauderdale said, "There are a lot of people who take walks over there. Just glad people are good, and I found it and no one's hurt."

The shelter-in-place order was lifted just after 7 p.m. Sunday.