California homes evacuated after ‘hundreds and hundreds’ of military explosives found in residence where 70-year-old man died
- Police called the bomb squad to a home on Thursday morning after finding a stockpile of explosive devices ranging in the hundreds in a dead man’s home
- The 70-year-old is thought to have died of natural causes and it is not known if anybody else was living in the house or whether he was in the military
- Twenty houses were immediately evacuated as the police called for assistance
- Roads surrounding the house remain closed as the investigation continues and the explosive devices are safely removed by the bomb squad and local air force
- The investigation may carry on to the weekend due the size of the stockpile
Twenty homes were forced to evacuate in California after ‘hundreds and hundreds’ of explosive devices were found in the home of a recently deceased 70-year-old man.
Police in Stockton, California, called to a house on Thursday morning where a man was believed to have died of natural causes but found a large number of what appeared to be military weapons in the residence.
Officers called the bomb squad and twenty houses in the surrounding streets were evacuated as a precaution. Street closures remained in effect on Friday until further notice as the investigation continues.
The bomb squad was called to a house in California after hundreds of explosives were found
Police quickly evacuated the surrounding streets as they began to investigate the devices
At 9am on Thursday morning, officers called to a residence on the 2900 block of Rockford Avenue, finding the body of a man they first thought to be in his 60s or 70s.
People who know the man found him in the house and called the police. It is believed he died of natural causes.
As police looked throughout the rest of the house, a large number of weapons were discovered, some of which looked to be military weapons and the building was immediately evacuated. It is not yet known if anyone else lived in the house with him.
The surrounding streets remain closed through Friday as the investigation continues
The 2900 block on Rockford Ave were the military explosive devices were discovered
‘During the initial stages of the investigation, our officers located what they believed to be numerous types of possible military explosives inside the house,’ Officer Joe Silva, a spokesman for the Stockton Police Department, told Recordnet.com.
When the bomb squad arrived, they believed that the devices may have been military, Silva explained, and help was sought from the local Travis Air Force Base.
Officers evacuated twenty homes around the house as a precaution while the Red Cross set up an evacuation center for those affected at the Arnold Rue Community Center on Lorraine Avenue.
Stockton Police Department issued an evacuation alert for the surrounding streets
Officer Joe Silva said the investigation would carry on into the weekend
At 9am on Thursday morning, officers called to a residence on the 2900 block of Rockford Avenue, finding the body of a man they first thought to be in his 60s or 70s
Officers do not yet know if the man was in the military or the reason for his stockpile of military explosives.
The collection of explosives is so large that although experts traveled to the house on Thursday afternoon they will be forced to return on Friday to finish the investigation.
Silva reported the investigation of the property could continue into the weekend. The streets closed in the initial shutdown remain closed until further notice.
‘They just left about an hour ago just because of how many types of devices are still in the home, they had to go back and get additional personnel’, he told Fox 40 on Thursday evening.
‘Since there are so many of them, they actually had to leave here this evening and they’ll be back tomorrow morning with more personnel,’ Silva said on Thursday evening.
‘You have to look at each device, determine if it’s live or not and then figure out exactly how you’re going to move it out of the residence.’
Recordnet.com spoke to one neighbor Dale Boyd who lives in the evacuation zone. He did not know the deceased man but said he ‘never caused a problem’.
Boyd claimed whoever the man was he was well within his right to collect the weapons but likes to think he never would have used them.