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CNN Live Today

Weapons Discovery

Aired February 24, 2003 - 11:26   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We turn to a story coming to us out of Tampa. A weapons discovery shut down a state office building for a while this morning.
Reporter Chris O'Connell joins us from our Tampa affiliate Bay News 9 with that story.

Hello, Chris.

CHRIS O'CONNELL, BAY NEWS 9 REPORTER: How's it going, Leon.

First of all, a bag filled with explosives, found here in a state office building here in Tampa. That discovery led to the evacuation of 400 state office workers here in downtown.

We can tell you just minutes ago the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have removed the explosives and have deemed this building safe. All those workers can now go back inside the building.

A laundry list of explosives -- a 30 caliber rifle, two boxes of ammunition and a live hand grenade were all found by a building maintenance worker inside a second story storage facility.

Now, the Tampa bomb squad, along with the ATF, have disposed of those items, while hundreds of workers waited and watched outside for nearly three hours, startled when they show up to work this Monday morning.

Of course, with this heightened state of alert, the threat was taken very seriously.

Now, we're just finding out exactly what happened. We're just finding out that a former maintenance worker here, a former building manager who worked here for more than 20 years, used this storage room to store his own personal items, like furniture. We saw trophies. And in that list of personal items, a bunch of explosives.

Now, in terms of -- they're now trying to track this maintenance worker down. Apparently, he no longer works here. He probably moved jobs about two weeks ago. They're trying to track him down to see if any charges may be filed. We're not sure if he actually broke any laws. He was just storing these explosives inside this room. But there may be some state policy he may have broken.

But right now, the investigation continues. The explosives have been brought out once again. The state office building, the Park Tramiel (ph) building here in Tampa, in downtown, has been evacuated, but now those workers here are being let back in to the building as the investigation continues. Exactly why this guy was storing these explosives inside a state office building -- Leon.

HARRIS: Well, that's a good one. Good question there. Hope you can find out the answer to it later on.

Thanks, Chris. Chris O'Connell, from Bay News 9 in Tampa.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 24, 2003 - 11:26   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We turn to a story coming to us out of Tampa. A weapons discovery shut down a state office building for a while this morning.
Reporter Chris O'Connell joins us from our Tampa affiliate Bay News 9 with that story.

Hello, Chris.

CHRIS O'CONNELL, BAY NEWS 9 REPORTER: How's it going, Leon.

First of all, a bag filled with explosives, found here in a state office building here in Tampa. That discovery led to the evacuation of 400 state office workers here in downtown.

We can tell you just minutes ago the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have removed the explosives and have deemed this building safe. All those workers can now go back inside the building.

A laundry list of explosives -- a 30 caliber rifle, two boxes of ammunition and a live hand grenade were all found by a building maintenance worker inside a second story storage facility.

Now, the Tampa bomb squad, along with the ATF, have disposed of those items, while hundreds of workers waited and watched outside for nearly three hours, startled when they show up to work this Monday morning.

Of course, with this heightened state of alert, the threat was taken very seriously.

Now, we're just finding out exactly what happened. We're just finding out that a former maintenance worker here, a former building manager who worked here for more than 20 years, used this storage room to store his own personal items, like furniture. We saw trophies. And in that list of personal items, a bunch of explosives.

Now, in terms of -- they're now trying to track this maintenance worker down. Apparently, he no longer works here. He probably moved jobs about two weeks ago. They're trying to track him down to see if any charges may be filed. We're not sure if he actually broke any laws. He was just storing these explosives inside this room. But there may be some state policy he may have broken.

But right now, the investigation continues. The explosives have been brought out once again. The state office building, the Park Tramiel (ph) building here in Tampa, in downtown, has been evacuated, but now those workers here are being let back in to the building as the investigation continues. Exactly why this guy was storing these explosives inside a state office building -- Leon.

HARRIS: Well, that's a good one. Good question there. Hope you can find out the answer to it later on.

Thanks, Chris. Chris O'Connell, from Bay News 9 in Tampa.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com