Needham

2nd explosive fished from Charles River in Needham in a week

Needham police shared an alert with residents about possibly hearing the ordnance be exploded in a controlled detonation in town

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Another explosive has been pulled from the Charles River in Needham, Massachusetts.

Josh Parker was shocked when he pulled up a hollow bazooka round at the Kendrick Street bridge. He made the discovery just days after his friend, Sean Martell, pulled up a live mortar in the same area.

A bomb squad determined the explosive to be an old and deteriorated bazooka round, possibly from the World War II era, state police said.

"As a history buff and magnet fisher and just a general guy, that's awesome. To find a bazooka round?" Parker said. "That's every little boy's dream is to be the bazooka guy when they're playing army."

Needham police shared an alert with residents about possibly hearing the ordnance be exploded in a controlled detonation in town.

A man describes his response to finding unexploded ordnance while magnet fishing Friday.

Parker says he magnet fishes to relax and be environmentally friendly.

"If I can clean up the water," he said. "I'm going to get that stuff that's maybe more toxic."

He says he's used his magnet to catch all kinds of things, like high-heeled shoes and a motorized bicycle.

"It really clears your head and gives you something to just kind of relax about," he said. "Until you find a rocket, and then you're up here."

It was a similar scene to Friday, when Martell pulled a live mortar and a gun with a broken trigger guard out of the same stretch of the Charles River.

"As soon as I put it down, I saw that it had the head on it still, and I was like, 'I'm going to have to call the police,'" Martell said at the time.

State police later shared an image of the ordnance, a severely deteriorated military projectile about a foot long and four inches wide.

Police called that incident isolated. Martell was livestreaming at the time on his YouTube channel, Brockton Magnet Fisher. He didn't appear to have been livestreaming Wednesady.

A Massachusetts State Police bomb squad was assisting Needham police and firefighters with Wednesday's unexploded ordnance. Police haven't offered more details on what kind of explosive it was or why it was in the water.

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