Dec. 14--A stretch of Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance was evacuated and a bomb squad called out Saturday evening after a store customer brought in suspicious military ordnance, police said.
The ordnance was brought into Turner's Outdoorsman, a hunting and fishing goods store that sells guns and ammunition, in the 18300 block of Hawthorne Boulevard. Police were called to the scene because neither the customer nor store employees could identify the ordnance or determine whether it posed a danger, said Sgt. Paul Kranke of the Torrance Police Department.
Turner's and adjacent businesses were evacuated and Hawthorne Boulevard shut down as a precaution as the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department bomb squad arrived to evaluate the item, Kranke said.
Bomb squad personnel determined the device wasn't an immediate risk and transported it back to sheriff's headquarters around 9:30 p.m., police said. The street and stores were reopened around the same time.
Kranke said the item was brought in by a customer who wanted to get rid of it, but did not have details on how the man had obtained it. An official at the scene described it as being no larger than a soda can.
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