Rancho San Diego
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A live, 60-millimeter mortar round was removed by a sheriff’s bomb squad after it was found on a shelf in a shoe store at a shopping mall Friday, authorities said.
Units from the Sheriff’s Department Arson Explosives Detail and the San Miguel Fire Department evacuated part of the Rancho San Diego Shopping Center in the 3600 block of Avocado Boulevard while the sheriff’s detail removed the live shell, Sheriff’s Sgt. Roy Stamper said.
The store’s owner called the Sheriff’s Department after an unidentified man said he had found the shell and dropped it off at the store, Stamper said. Deputies found the shell standing upright on a shelf.
The round was transported by sheriff’s deputies to the U.S. Army’s 70th Ordnance Detachment on Point Loma, where it will be disposed of, Stamper said.
The ordnance contained about three-quarters of a pound of explosives--enough to have severely damaged the store had it been detonated, Army Sgt. James Waynick said.
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