By Rebecca Roberts
Oakville, MO (KTVI) — A marijuana joint inside a metal container caused quite a scare in Oakville Monday afternoon. The canister was dropped off outside the post office, causing a bomb scare.
It happened around 1 pm at the Dierbergs shopping center on Telegraph Road. A witness spotted a man in a green SUV drop a metal canister with black casing onto a light post outside the Oakville Post Office. Then he hopped back in the SUV and drove away. There was also a woman in the SUV. The witness thought this behavior was suspicious, and called police.
When St. Louis County police arrived at the scene, they didn’t know what they were dealing with, so they called in the Arson and Explosives Unit. They set up a 400-foot perimeter, and evacuated the post office, and the Chinese restaurant next door, Hunan Peking. The owners, a husband and wife, were standing in the parking lot as they waited for the situation to be resolved. Leane Lin says, “It wasn’t that scary at the beginning, but when they told us to get out, we said ok, we better run!”
One entrance of Dierbergs was also closed for safety.
Investigators put on bomb suits and approached the object with an x-ray machine, to determine whether there was an explosive device inside. At that point, they realized it was a false alarm, and discovered the joint inside the canister. St. Louis Police Sgt. Brian Schellman explains, “Obviously, you have to take these precautions because if there is an explosive device, number one, you want to look out for the citizens around here, but also for the property.”
Meanwhile, the two and a half-hour ordeal was nerve-racking for people trying to run errands here. Oakville resident Diane Henderson says, “My son was trying to take some pictures, we don’t ever see that, not here, not really something you want to see.”
Police are still looking for the man and woman inside the green SUV, looking to determine why the man jumped out to drop off that joint at the post office.
Police are checking with nearby businesses to see if the SUV was caught on surveillance.