Postal Worker Picks up Suspected Pipe Bomb
This post was written by Hannah Chanpong.
A mailman in rural Welch, Minn. was driving his route this afternoon when he spotted an "apparatus" resembling a "pipe bomb" alongside the road, according to Kris Weiss at the Goodhue County Sheriff's Office. Weiss said the mailman saw a group of kids headed toward to the device. The mailman picked it up, put it in his vehicle and drove it back to the post office before calling the Sheriff's Office.
A bomb squad from Bloomington, Minn. responded to the call just after 1 p.m.
Weiss said the Welch Post Office is four or five miles from where he found the "pipe bomb."
"It probably would have been better if he had called us right away and we would have responded at the scene," she said. "If it happens to be a bomb, it might have been not stable."
The bomb squad is still investigating.
Update 5:46 p.m. ET: At around 4 p.m. CST, a bomb squad from Bloomington, Minn. moved the device from the post office to a remote gravel pit and detonated it. Members of the bomb squad said they were not certain whether or not the pipe bomb was real. "They do that to be on the safe side to just about everything they find," Weiss said. Officials have determined that the device was found in Dakota County but driven into Goodhue County. Any further action will be taken by authorities in Dakota County.