A Vancouver police bomb squad responded to Wintler Park on Tuesday afternoon to remove what appeared to be a pipe bomb found there in the Columbia River.
Police responded to a call at about 2:42 p.m., after volunteers found a rusty device that looked to them like a pipe bomb lying in the river while they were cleaning the park, said Kim Kapp, spokeswoman for the Vancouver Police Department.
When officers arrived, Kapp said, they found that the volunteers had moved the device to a trash can, but it did not detonate and no one was injured. The park was evacuated while a bomb squad removed the device.
Police won’t know if it’s a pipe bomb until a report from the Metro Explosive Disposal Unit on Wednesday, Kapp said, adding that investigators have no idea how long the device had been in the water.
“We don’t recommend people touching them or moving them,” Kapp said, “but these people did, which is kind of scary.”
