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Category: Front Page News Front Page News
Published: 13 May 2019 13 May 2019

By Roger Lanse

On Friday, May 10, 2019, at approximately 11:27 a.m., a Silver City police officer was dispatched to the Gospel Mission regarding a cylindrical object that looked like a pipe bomb. A Gospel Mission worker told the officer, according to an incident report, that other workers found the object in a box for donations and took it out of the box and put it on the ground. From a picture, the object was estimated by this writer to be about eight inches long and two inches in diameter.

According to standard protocol, an evacuation was recommended, making some store owners a little upset, according to Chief Freddie Portillo, and a staging area was set up at the Visitor Center.

The New Mexico State Police Bomb Squad was notified arriving from Albuquerque about 3:48 p.m. After their investigation, the object was determined to be a solid metal cylinder with plastic caps on each end.