Second Street keeping police busy

CLOVIS — Officer, that's not my grenade.

Gary Charley told police something to that effect this week when they located his recently stolen vehicle Tuesday morning off an alley near the 400 block of Clovis' Second Street. It was abandoned there less than 36 hours after he'd reported it missing early Monday morning from outside his place of work.

When police located his Nissan sedan, they found what looked like a grenade inside and called out Cannon Air Force Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal team to destroy it.

"The police called me and they're like, 'What do you do for a living? We found a grenade in your car ... could that possibly be yours?' " Charley told The News.

That's not the only thing keeping Clovis police busy of late on Second Street — on Thursday, officers found a trove of freshly stolen merchandise from a Portales auto store on a property between Axtell and Wallace streets.

The stolen car was recovered just a few blocks from the auto-store merchandise, but Clovis Police Capt. Roman Romero said he doesn't think the incidents are related.

Charley is back in possession of his car, which vanished from outside his place of work on the 1900 block of Miller Drive just before 1:30 a.m. Monday. He is still missing almost $2,000 in electronics between two amplifiers and a speaker box, and he said police also found somebody's switchblade and personal effects inside the car, along with the apparent explosive.

"Not something I would mess with," Romero said of the object, which he said resembled an M67 grenade. Acting in "an abundance of caution," police called out Cannon's OED team for a "controlled detonation" of the object.

Romero said there is a juvenile suspect believed to be responsible for several recent car thefts, but he didn't link Charley's car with the investigation Thursday. The Thursday case emerged from a report early that morning of a car theft and burglary of an auto store in Portales.

Clovis police became involved later that morning, when a caller told them around 9 a.m. that they saw tires from the store at the property on Second Street. Serving a search warrant that afternoon, officers located at least seven stolen tires and a tool kit on wheels. They were still busy at it as the afternoon advanced.

Both investigations are in progress. Police did not respond to additional questions Thursday as to charges or arrests from either incident.