Star Tribune
Volatile WWII-era grenade survives trip in Goodwill truck from Duluth to Ashland, is spotted in time
Police said Tuesday they are grateful that a World War II-era grenade — live and volatile — made the 68-mile trip and didn’t go boom in the back of a box truck with other donated items from a second-hand store in Duluth to a sister outlet in the far reaches of northern Wisconsin.
An alert employee spotted the Japanese-made tool of destruction just after noon last Saturday, after the shipment arrived for sorting at the Goodwill in Ashland. That set in motion the grenade’s eventual destruction by a law enforcement bomb squad.
“It was intact with all its functioning parts,” Ashland Police Lt. Brandon Marten said. “It was relocated to a safe area and detonated.”
The bomb squad from the Marathon County (Wis.) Sheriff’s Office “determined that the grenade was live,” he said. Given that it was indeed a live explosive, “it would likely be very unstable. That would be my opinion, based on all the facts.”
Scott Vezina, director of communications and marketing for True North Goodwill, which is based in Duluth and has 11 sites, said a worker was “sorting through a bin and came across the item. Because of his keen eye, he got it.”
From there, 911 was called, and about two dozen customers and staff members were directed out of the building while the grenade was place on the ground between two dumpsters, Vezina said.
The bomb squad, which had to travel some 160 miles from Wausau to northern Wisconsin, arrived about 3 hours later and moved it to a safe location outside of the city for its destruction, Marten said.
“We don’t have any facts that anybody was trying to harm anyone,” Marten said. Even so, he said police want to find and talk to whoever was responsible for the grenade ending up in Goodwill’s donation stream.
The lieutenant said police get calls about old grenades “more frequently than you would think, and we treat them all as if they are live. They’ve all not been live, but this one was the real deal.”
Vezina said he hopes that the publicity around the live grenade’s discovery will get the message out: “Please don’t donate weapons.”
Transforming the heart of both downtowns, which have much larger buildings than old warehouses, is going to take a lot more money, creativity and time. Josh Talberg, managing director at downtown Minneapolis brokerage JLL, said with no major apartment buildings on the drawing board in either downtown, the fleet of empty office buildings present a golden opportunity to create more housing and lead both cities in a new direction.
“You can can certainly see the fundamentals improving, and you can feel that vibrancy, and that’s ultimately the foundation that’s needed to get investors to reinvest in the city,” he said. “But it’s not as if these 18-wheelers can turn on a dime.”
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
