You think you had a bad day? Try dealing with a bomb squad investigation. Phoenix investigators started looking into a stolen car, but that quickly turned into an hours-long bomb squad response. Luckily, when it all went down earlier in the week, no one was actually hurt — but it was a dangerous situation nevertheless. Police found what they described as suspicious devices inside the stolen car and called in the bomb squad to be safe. Those devices turned out not to be explosive. In the meantime, officers shut down several blocks for hours, having detained a man they later released after looking into the situation further.
According to Phoenix police, it happened Tuesday night near 35th and Dunlap avenues. Officers were investigating a stolen car when they found the suspicious devices inside. Out of caution, they called the bomb squad and cleared the area. Aerial footage showed the scale of it. There was a large police presence, with streets blocked off for hours.
The bomb squad eventually determined that the devices weren’t explosives and posed no danger, though that wasn’t immediately clear at first. With that, the threat that had closed streets for much of the night was eventually cleared. The man that had been detained, however, was still to be investigated further for his potential involvement.
This all sounds like excessive response for such a seemingly small alert. But in practice, it’s how these calls are supposed to go. Police treat suspicious devices this way for a reason, even when most turn out to be harmless. You can never be too sure in these situations what could happen with them.
Why the Bomb Squad Gets Called for a Maybe
Phoenix Police Bomb Squad called during a stolen car investigation https://t.co/pdlYmHmB7d
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Police don’t wait to be sure something is a bomb before treating it like one. Once officers find a device they can’t immediately explain, the standard move is to assume the worst. That’s even more true in an odd context, like a stolen car. A bomb squad has the training and tools, including robots, to examine a suspicious object without putting an officer right on top of it. Shutting down nearby blocks is part of the same caution.
The upside of that caution is obvious. The downside is that a lot of these calls end exactly like this one, with a scare, a long road closure, and no actual bomb. Police generally accept that tradeoff, since the cost of being wrong the other way is far higher. A closed street for a night beats the alternative.
What’s Currently Known About the Case
For all the commotion, a lot about the case still remains open pending investigation. Police detained one man during the search, then let him go pending further investigation. He hasn’t been charged with anything. It’s not clear what connection, if any, he has to the stolen car or the devices. Officers also haven’t said what the devices actually were, only that they weren’t dangerous.
The stolen car itself is presumably the thread police will keep pulling. Auto theft is common in Phoenix, and a routine recovery occasionally turns up something stranger, which is roughly what happened here. The upshot is simple. No one was hurt, the streets are open again, and the investigation continues. Whatever those devices were, they didn’t turn out to be the emergency they first appeared to be.