Neighborhood Put On High Alert Over Man's Antique Cannonball

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A McKinney weapons collector who kept an antique cannonball in his apartment got a chance to show it off to the McKinney Police Department and the Plano PD's bomb squad Monday morning, McKinney Police Capt. Randy Roland said.

The unidentified man kept the Civil War cannonball in his apartment at the Cedar Creek Village Apartments complex located in the 600 block of S. Graves Street, Roland said.

Police received an anonymous tip on the cannonball and responded to the scene around 11:30 a.m. Monday. The resident answered the door and welcomed officers to look around his apartment, Roland said.

Police found an “anti-personnel” incendiary device that contained smaller metal projectiles and black powder. They called in the Plano Police's bomb squad to dispose of the device, Roland said.

They also put the surrounding neighborhood on alert including McKinney High School located just across the street from the complex, Roland said.

“We just asked them to be aware and, if they could, stay indoors,” Roland said.

McKinney Independent School District Spokesman Cody Cunningham said they did not feel it was necessary to evacuate the entire school.

“We felt like the distance from the apartment to the school was sufficient enough not to be concerned with evacuating the school as a whole,” Cunningham said. “But we did evacuate students from the portable buildings.”


Det. Bryan Wood of the Plano PD's bomb squad said the man purchased the cannonball from a gun show in Dallas. He said the man bought it from a retailer for $50 in the parking lot where the gun show was held.

The MPD dumped a pile of sand in a field across from the apartment complex where they buried the cannonball and “counter-charged it” by detonating it in the sand, Wood said.

Roland said he could not release the name of the owner since the matter is still under investigation. He also said investigators are trying to determine if owning the incendiary device was a violation of any laws and if any charges can be filed.

http://www.courier-gazette.com/articles/2005/12/06/news/news01.txt