1 gun Prompts Building Evacuation of 400 people

[AZTOY]

Weapons Cache Prompts Building Evacuation

By KEITH MORELLI [email protected]<

Published: Feb 24, 2003TAMPA -

About 400 people were evacuated from the Park Trammell State Building Monday morning after a rifle, live ammunition and a hand grenade were found by a maintenance worker.
U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman Carlos Baixauli would not say if the grenade was live. Employees were evacuated between 7:30 and 8 a.m. just as a precaution, he said.

Shortly after 10 a.m., after a Tampa police dog ``swept'' the building and found no other dangerous materials, the workers were allowed back inside.

The building is home to several state agencies including the Florida Department of Correction's Parole and Probation Services, the Department of Children and Family Services, local offices for the Florida Secretary of State and the Florida Division of Management Services.

Baixauli said a maintenance worker was cleaning out a storage area on the second floor of the building at 1313 N. Tampa Street, when he came across the rifle, some live .30-caliber ammunition and the grenade. The worker pulled the fire alarm.

Police arrived and turned the case over to the federal agency. Baixauli said investigators believed the items belonged to an employee who worked inside the building, but would not elaborate.

No one was arrested and no one was injured.

Tampa police closed off Laurel, Tampa and Fortune streets that pass close to the building and opened them up at 10 a.m.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGAQ3KRNKCD.html

 

[boing]

...when he came across the rifle, some live .30-caliber ammunition and the grenade. The worker pulled the fire alarm.

Was that before, or after, he peed his pants?

I wonder if he'll get charged for pulling a phony fire alarm. He couldn't get to a phone fast enough? It's not a universal panic button, you moron.

 

[Airwolf]

Well, you know... It could have just "gone off" like them there guns always do. Blasting away because they were exposed to light or looked at in a "funny" way.

Probably figured the grenade would do the same thing after seeing all those movies about booby traps.



We have now reached the point where large numbers of people are terrified by the mere sight of inanimate objects that they know nothing about execpt by exposure to mass media.

The species is doomed.

 

[Shweboner]

No one was arrested and no one was injured.

Aint that a ****ing miracle.

This maintenance worker deserves a medal for god sake! He saved the whole neighborhood... just think if he had waited 5, 10, or dare I say 20 minutes to find out what it was doing there, well teh effects could have been devastating!

Tampa police closed off Laurel, Tampa and Fortune streets that pass close to the building

Thank god for that brilliant bit of police work... somebody might have seen the gun... or maybe went insane after seeing that '.30-caliber ammunition'

Never ceases to amaze me.

~Brian

 

[Ed Straker]

You know, there's another definition for 'evacuation', too.

 

[boing]

In fairness, closing off adjacent streets, after a calm and orderly evacuation of the building, is a reasonable precaution when dealing with unknown explosives.

 

[dinosaur]

If they found a carton of Marlboros, a bottle of Black and a book of matches, it was the ATF armory.

 

[El Tejon]

Tampa po-po are having a tough time of it lately.

Did they send in a negotiator to deal with the rifle?

 

[Kahr carrier]

I wonder if someone stashed the rifle to go Postal??? Sounds like that Janitor over reacted just a little.

 

[Viking6]

Pulling the alarm was over the top but if I opened a locker at my work place and saw a rifle and a hand grenade I WOULD be alarmed. We're at blanking war. If things had gone brown, then everybody would be second guessing the lack of response.

 

[Don Gwinn]

U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman Carlos Baixauli would not say if the grenade was live.

Translation: The grenade was a dummy.

OK, purely because the weapons were apparently hidden in a storage area, it's possible that they were stashed for some sinister purpose. Not likely in my mind, though. And you'd think you'd just take the stuff back to a room you have a key for, lock 'em in, and go find a phone.

 

[TarpleyG]

Can someone that knows how to write well please send a note to this moron at the Tribune, KEITH MORELLI, and tell him that a rifle and grenade do not constitute a "cache"?

GT

 

[Baba Louie]

Well, technically a cache is a hiding place for storing provisions... so it Could have been someone's cache.

Gosh, just taking the ammo would've rendered the firearm all but useless for the time being... a quick phone call, calmly made...

The grenade? hmmmmm. Maybe worthy of a phone call with a little more urgency... lock to door to said storeroom and await the authorities, keeping an eye on the door till they show.

"The Sky is falling"

What have we become?

sigh

Adios

 

[TarpleyG]

okay, technically, maybe but we all interpret "cache" from the media as a large quantity of something. Be it drugs, guns, etc.

GT

 

[ajacobs]

Good thing the headlines weren't 95 people trampled to death when janitor pulls fire alarm.

 

[hso]

Anyone in the emergency response biz can tell you that the building emergency response plan probably dictates that any time an explosive device is found the building is evacuated. Since the only way to evacuate a large building is to trigger the fire alarm I would bet the janitor followed the emergency plan nearly to the letter.

Can any of you spell Murrah Building?

The employee did the right thing.

 

[jbutenhoff]

wake up!

Um, they did the right thing. We are at a state of war with heightened security here at home. For all you know this could have been a fall back position for a terrorist of some kind. If the janitor waited a half an hour can you promise everyone in that building that the worse case would not happen? This could have turned out very differently.

Jamie

 

[tyme]

In fairness, closing off adjacent streets, after a calm and orderly evacuation of the building, is a reasonable precaution when dealing with unknown explosives.

What "unknown" explosives were there? The grenade would have to contain special nuclear material before it would warrant closing down nearby streets. I think it's pretty much impossible to construct something that can go critical the size of a grenade, but IANANS. They might as well close down the whole city looking for "unknown explosives" in all the buildings. Every day. At 7am, during lunch, and at 5pm.

 

[COHIBA]

hum...
the story i heard was that he dove on the greande and lay there for 6 hours till someone found him.

 

[Art Eatman]

Why can't I find fun stuff like that? Given the present times, I'd have hauled the stuff to my desk/office or whatever and called the building security. I dunno. Most likely would depend on whether it was in a legitimate, private storage, or if it looked "hidden" for nefarious purposes. Probably wouldn't tell them about the grenade, of course, and probably would have kept about half the ammo if it fit anything I've got.

Grenades are fun. Great for fishing.

Art

 

[boing]

What "unknown" explosives were there?

The unkown explosives are what you don't see, because you haven't searched the building yet.

They might as well close down the whole city looking for "unknown explosives" in all the buildings. Every day. At 7am, during lunch, and at 5pm.

Except in very limited circumstances, finding a grenade just about anywhere constitutes something not right! It's not like walking into to work and seeing pencils and fax machines and thinking "I wonder if there's a bomb in here?" If you walk into work and find a claymore under your desk, you better start asking yourself if anything else is out of the ordinary, even if it isn't obvious at first.

It's a Red Flag.

(Whether or not the grenade is live isn't important at this point. "All grenades are always loaded." )

 

[rebbryan]

yeah they're actin like they found boxcutters or something, not like they're dangerous or anything, they only helped to kill 3000 people on 9/11

 

[Weimadog]

The man found an apparently functional rifle, and apparently functional ammunition. To him, the grenade must have looked real enough. The building has a Department of Corrections Parole Office. Probably there are all sorts of nasty people who visit the building.

Think, grenade - Parole Office - Nasty Criminal sort of People. There is some bad potential there.

I think he did the right thing.

Weimadog