Live grenade found in car in LeRoy, driver charged

Posted at: 10/08/2012 12:05 PM | Updated at: 10/08/2012 8:22 PM
By: Ray Levato | WHEC.com

Police officers in LeRoy discovered what’s being called a live grenade in a car. It happened around 7:30 a.m. Monday after officers pulled 26-year-old Paul R. Kaiser over for speeding.
 
News10NBC is told the officer decided to search the vehicle because he smelled marijuana during the traffic stop. That’s when the grenade was found along with a long gun.

Kaiser is now facing multiple charges including criminal possession of a weapon, possession of marijuana, and multiple traffic infractions.

Because of the grenade, police evacuated eight nearby homes.

Milton Ebersold had gone out to get coffee when he got a call from his wife. “My wife called me and said she had to get out of the house. I asked, what happened? She said we've got to evacuate.”

So he went home quickly, picked up his wife and they left. “They said he was going over the sped limit and that's why they picked him up. And then they decided to check the car and they found all this stuff in the car. That's just crazy, you know?”

Across the street, Megan Dailey pointed out the red Ford Taurus that was still parked in front of her house. She said she had spent the night at her mother's house and was just coming home to get ready for work when she saw police pouring over the car with the trunk open. One of the car's bumper stickers read: Guns Don't Kill. “Around 7:30 my doorbell rang and a knock. A police officer just stated that it was a high emergency and he needed us to evacuate the building. They didn't give any details at that time what exactly was going on.”

LeRoy Police Detective John Condidorio said there was every indication the grenade was live. “It looked like a hand grenade. It looked very much like a hand grenade.” News10NBC asked what raised the officer’s suspicions that it might have been live. Condidorio said, “The officer is ex-military, I believe Marines, and he's actually handled live grenades before and believed based on his training that it was live.”

Police say exactly why Kaiser had it in his trunk is still under investigation, but they don’t believe it was sinister in nature but rather for entertainment purposes.

Dailey said, “It's kind of scary. People nowadays seem to be different sometimes. But it definitely makes you more worried about people out on the road I guess.”

The State Police Bomb Squad was able to safely transport the grenade to a safe location where it was not detonated. The reason -- it may be kept as evidence. Police also found a rifle in the car but the man is not being charged on that because it is a legal weapon.

Kaiser is currently being held in the Genesee County Jail.

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