By Breck Porter
A northwest Harris County home improvement store was evacuated Wednesday after a customer brought what was believed to be a real hand grenade to the store.

Harris County Sheriff's deputies say the incident happened at the Lowe's store on FM 529 near state Highway 6 on Wednesday afternoon.

Detectives say a man walked around the store with a hollowed-out plastic replica of a hand grenade. Deputies say he put the grenade down in the lumber department and then told store employees he left it there.

Officials also say he was apparently upset that no one paid attention to him as he walked around with the grenade. Employees called for help and deputies evacuated the store.
 
The store was closed while deputies investigated and determined the grenade was harmless. The man was detained for a short time, but prosecutors declined to file charges against him.

He was released from custody and his identification was not made public.

Several media sources continued to identify the device as a 'hand grenade' and did not make clear it was a plastic replica, adding drama to their reports.

Contact Breck Porter at editor@thepolicenews.net
or (409) 632-0042