The Goodwill store and donation center in the Penn Hills Shopping Center briefly shut down Tuesday afternoon after somebody donated a grenade.

“One of our employees at this location was going through a gaylord (box) when she noticed what appeared to look like really large bullets,” said Brian Minefield, an assistant manager who was working at the store. “Then, she pulled up what looked to be a hand grenade.”

It seemed real, Minefield said, and still had a pin in it.

That’s when he called 911 and ordered everyone to leave the building.

The evacuation happened about 2 p.m. Within an hour, Penn Hills police gave the all clear.

Penn Hills police Chief Ronald Como did not immediately return a request for comment, but according to Minefield, police spoke with a bomb squad expert and determined the grenade was not live.

“Never a dull moment,” he remarked.

Bomb squad responses are surprisingly common at Goodwill stores across the country. A quick online search turns up news stories about grenade donations in Arizona, California and Maine — all in the past six months.

Minefield couldn’t recall any similar incidents at his usual store in Monroeville, but he said another manager at the Penn Hills location has called in police for possibly dangerous donations on several occassions.

“She made it seem like this wasn’t uncommon,” Minefield said.

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