Dock Workers Find Dynamite in Granite

Los Angeles dock workers unloading a shipment of granite from a freighter Wednesday discovered two sticks of dynamite embedded in a slab of the rock.

The Police Department’s bomb squad safely defused one of the dynamite sticks and blew up the second, Officer Will Griggs said. Sgt. Walter Beckum of the Port Police said the dynamite was found by longshoremen unloading the CMB Splendor, a Liberian-flagged freighter. The discovery at Berth 174 was reported to Port Police shortly before noon, he said.

Beckum said the dynamite would not have posed a danger unless it had gotten wet. “Then it can be unstable,” he said. “It all depends on how it was stored.” It was not immediately known where the granite shipment originated.