EXCLUSIVE PHOTO: A pair of bazooka-type artillery rounds that a local man brought to Bogota police headquarters this morning — prompting the evacuation of borough hall and bringing the Bergen County Bomb Squad– turned out to be duds.
“He’s a collector we’ve known for many, many years,” Police Detective Capt. James Sepp told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “He didn’t want them in his collection anymore, so he asked if we could dispose of them.
CLIFFVIEW PILOT photo of ordnance at Bogota police HQ
“So we went out to his car, saw what they were and stopped right there,” Sepp said.
“These things were made to blow up tanks.”
Although the owner said he believed they were inert, the captain told CLIFFVIEW PILOT that police were “we’re erring on the side of safety.”
Areas of West Broad Street and Larch Avenue around the municipal complex were closed off. Firefighters and EMS workers remained on standby.
The Bergen County Police Department Bomb Squad arrived around 11:10 a.m. and immediately declared both rounds harmless, Sepp said. They were then taken to be X-rayed, he said.
Everything’s been reopened.