By Kevin Curley
Thursday Nov. 24, 2011
Paige Whiteaway was making her rounds at the Murray River disposal site last week when she noticed a suspicious looking canister in a shed.
The words on the side said “bomb.”
She contacted her superior John Gallant. He decided to call the Montague RCMP who drove out immediately.
Const. Craig Magee arrived and shut down the site until the issue was resolved.
He contacted the command centre in Charlottetown who asked him to send pictures using his phone.
After concluding the bomb was not an immediate threat, they carefully placed it in the trunk of Magee’s car so it could be disposed of properly.
Whiteaway couldn’t figure out who dropped it off.
“It was clearly very old, about a foot in height, in an old army type container with writing on the side saying it was a smoke bomb.”
She decided it was best to contact her superior as she was unsure of who dropped it off, she said.
“I think it was an older gentlemen who decided to get rid of it.”
John Gallant said he was asked by police to be careful with the bomb.
“The officer asked not to let anybody else in. I locked the gate and shut the site down.”
There is no procedure for this kind of thing because it’s not something you’d expect to happen, said Gallant.
“This was the first time I’ve heard of anything like this at any of our sites.”
Magee, as a general duty member, said a lot of officers aren’t skilled in live explosives or dealing with old war relics or grenades.
“What we do is make a patrol to where the container is at. In this case I looked at the container and it did say smoke bomb on the side, everyone’s safety is the first call in this type of situation.”
If the person at the scene is confident enough to transport it then they can, said Magee.
“We closed them down for an hour as a precaution, since we weren’t 100 per cent sure what it was.”
The command centre in Charlottetown is normally contacted, said Magee.
“They will contact DND, the Department of National Defence to give us instructions on how to safely dispose of the item.”
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