GOSHEN – The Orange County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO), assisted by other law enforcement agencies, secured a live hand grenade in Hamptonburgh on Thursday afternoon. The MK2 grenade was discovered by a contractor working on a Stony Ford Road estate.
Orange County Sheriff Paul Arteta said that his patrol deputies responded to the estate after a 3:55 p.m. call from a contractor at the location reported finding what appeared to be a hand grenade.
Deputies secured the scene, according to the sheriff, and additional resources were summoned. Members of the New York State Police Bomb Disposal Unit (BDU) and uniformed troopers from Troop F responded to the location to assist. The BDU technicians used a portable x-ray device to examine what was ultimately identified as a live, undetonated MK2 hand grenade. Once the deadly item was identified, bomb technicians rendered the device “safe” and removed it from the scene. It will be destroyed by the BDU at an unspecified location in the future.
Sheriff Arteta told Mid-Hudson News “We are grateful for the collaboration between the Sheriff’s Office and the New York State Police in bringing a potentially hazardous situation to a successful resolution.”
The MK2 grenade is a fragmentation grenade dating back to 1918. Commonly referred to as “The pineapple,” it was phased out of US armed gorces military service in after the Vietnam War.
