Suspicious device in downtown Modesto turns out to be pot tool

Ninth Street in front of the Modesto Downtown Transportation Center was closed off for about an hour and a half Monday morning when a caller to 911 reported what looked like a pipe bomb. The roughly foot-long length of dark plastic pipe, 4 to 6 inches in diameter and capped at both ends, turned out to be a device to extract oil from marijuana plants.

The report was made shortly after 9 a.m. The pipe was lying on the sidewalk next to an electrical box on the south side of Ninth Street at J Street. Modesto police cordoned off Ninth Street between I and K streets and taped off a large area in front of the transit center to keep pedestrians away.

Wearing a full helmet and body armor, a member of the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad X-rayed the pipe, returned to the squad’s van, then minutes later reapproached the pipe and removed it.

Service at the transit center was not interrupted during law enforcement’s work, its operations manager said.

A small crowd of people gathered on the north side of Ninth Street to watch the incident, and a couple of people said they recognized what the device was.

Such hash-oil-extraction tools also are familiar to law enforcement, but “we’re going to err on the side of safety” and treat reported suspicious items as though they could be dangerous, police Officer Billy Boyle said. “That’s why we have such a close relationship with the Sheriff’s Department bomb squad. ... Our officers are told not to manipulate anything like this.”

This story was originally published November 23, 2015 at 12:15 PM with the headline "Suspicious device in downtown Modesto turns out to be pot tool."