NOVATO, CA — A bomb squad was called to Novato over the weekend to remove an intact grenade found buried in a resident’s backyard. Novato police were contacted shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday by a homeowner on Wallace Court who, while digging in his backyard, found what officials described as a heavily corroded, completely intact fragmentation grenade.

“As soon as he found it he called for help,” Novato police Lt. John McCarthy. “God knows how long it had been there.”

McCarthy said the bomb squad from the University of California at Berkeley took the grenade to a nearby remote field and defused it.

He said it wasn’t clear how old the device was or how it ended up in that residential area. The homeowner had lived at the property for the past decade, McCarthy said.

Source:

• Marin IJ