A suspicious package left in front of the Washington County Sheriff's
office in Hillsboro turned out to harbor a rare lost-and-found item.
A titanium prosthetic leg.
At about noon on Sunday a pair of Sheriff's deputies noticed a burlap bag with a cylindrical metal device peaking out the top.
The deputies investigated and noticed screws at
one end of the cylinder, and suspecting that it might be a pipe bomb,
contacted the Portland Bomb Squad.
The bomb squad sent a robot to investigate the bag
and discovered that what looked like a pipe bomb from a distance was
actually a prosthetic leg.
“I think we're being a lot more cautious on these
situations than we used to be,” said Sgt. David Thompson, spokesman for
the Washington County Sheriff's Office.
Thompson said that past bomb scares in downtown
Hillsboro-including a pipe bomb that was left in the city earlier this
year-have officers on the lookout for suspicious packages.
A bomb that exploded in Woodburn that killed a
police officer and a police bomb technician installed in area police
agencies a “better safe than sorry” attitude.
Thompson said it wasn't clear where the leg came from, or who it belonged to. Police aren't sure who dropped it off, either.
“Either they found it and dropped it off or inadvertently stole it and dropped it off,” Thompson said.
Thompson said that the Sheriff's Office isn't
aware of any recent legs reported stolen and a leg reported stolen in
Washington last year didn't match the leg found in Hillsboro.
“At this point we're just hoping that somebody will come forward (to claim it),” Thompson said.
Thompson wouldn't release photos of the leg, but said it didn't really look like a run-of-the-mill prosthesis.
“When I heard it was a prosthetic leg I expected
something that looked like a mannequin leg.” Thompson said. “It looks
like a metal mechanical device. If you didn't know what you were
looking at you wouldn't think it's a leg.”
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