A routine traffic stop in Henry County, Virginia, turned into a full bomb squad response this week after a man told a state trooper he needed to be arrested and pointed to homemade explosives sitting on the floorboard of his own pickup truck.
The incident happened Monday, July 6, around 12:30 p.m., when a Virginia State Police trooper came across a Toyota Tacoma parked improperly in the middle of the road near Dupont Road in Henry County. The driver, 32-year-old Morgan Vincent Chambers of Martinsville, was standing outside the truck when the trooper pulled up. As soon as the trooper got out of the patrol car, Chambers climbed back into his Tacoma and put both hands on the steering wheel, which is usually a sign that whatever is about to happen next is not going to be simple.
It wasn’t, reported NBC 10 News. When the trooper asked why the truck was blocking the road, Chambers reportedly told him, “I need to be arrested,” then pointed to the passenger floorboard and said there were Molotov cocktails inside. That’s about as direct an admission as law enforcement ever gets, and it kicked off a scene that most Tacoma owners never expect their truck to be part of.
Troopers cleared the area, closed the road, and called in backup from the Henry County Sheriff’s Office and Henry County Public Safety. The Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation was notified, and the bomb unit was brought in to handle the situation properly. Several suspicious items were removed from the truck by the time everything wrapped up.
A Truck Turned Crime Scene
It’s not every day a pickup truck becomes the center of a bomb squad callout, but that’s exactly what happened here.
The Tacoma itself wasn’t damaged or destroyed, and there’s no indication anything was actually set off. Still, having your truck bed and floorboards treated as evidence in a felony explosives case is not the kind of attention any owner wants, work truck or otherwise.
What Chambers Is Facing
Chambers was taken into custody and transported to the Henry County Jail. He’s now charged with manufacture, possession, use, or distribution of firebombs and explosive materials, a Class 5 felony in Virginia, along with an additional charge for attempting to commit a felony.
Depending on how that second charge is classified, he could be looking at anywhere from a Class 6 to a Class 4 felony on top of the first count.
Investigation Still Active
Virginia State Police say the case remains under investigation, and no further details about what may have prompted the incident have been released.
As of now, there’s no word on whether Chambers has entered a plea or when his next court date might be.