Grenade Found at Goodwill Store, but It Was Just a Display

**Update 9:30 p.m.

An employee was unpacking a box of donated goods Sunday afternoon at the Mount Pleasant Goodwill store when she came across a vintage hand grenade.

Not sure whether the unit was live and could explode, store employees called 911, triggering a full response and staging area with the Mount Pleasant Police and South Shore Fire departments.

It turns out, the grenade wasn't live at all - because it had the bottom drilled out was only being used for display. 

"It was a dummy hand grenade with the bottom drilled out so it could be on display," said SSFD Interim Chief Mark Pierce. "It probably was real at some point, but that was a long time ago."

Officers and firefighters were dispatched to the store at 3131 S. Oakes Road at 4:19 p.m. Sunday.

MPPD Sgt. Paul Maccari told Patch in an email that one of the responding officers has experience with military ordinance, and he determined the grenade was not live.

"One of the officers who responded has a background in military ordinance and found that it was not capable of exploding," he wrote. "It was missing key components to make it dangerous (or) capable of becoming a live grenade." 

A witness at the scene told Patch that a manager was alerted to the situation, telling employees he had to call the fire department because Goodwill has a particular procedure that has to be followed in cases like this.

Customers and staff at the store were never in any danger, Maccari added. MPPD has the grenade now, and it will be destroyed. No charges will be filed in connection with the incident.

Patch also called Goodwill spokeswoman Cheryl Lightholder about whether the store was evacuated, and we will update this story when we hear from her.