As the Fourth of July approaches, local law enforcement reminds residents to call 911 to report illegal fireworks and homemade items, including tennis ball bombs.
At a recent community meeting of residents and police, someone asked: "How do you identify a tennis ball bomb?"
"A tennis ball bomb is very easy to identify," a police spokesman said. "It is a real tennis ball that has some sort of fuse sticking out of it. The tennis ball could also be completely wrapped in duct tape with a fuse sticking out."
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The warning about tampered tennis balls goes beyond one community meeting.
A man who was geo-caching earlier this year in Everett, Washington, stumbled upon a set of explosives: tennis balls with fuses coming out of them.
No one was injured in that discovery.
A ball blast turned fatal in Portland in 2000 a man was playing with his dog.
The Oregonian reported that a man was playing fetch with a friend's dog when one of the balls the dog was retrieving exploded in the dog's mouth.
Police advise leaving abandoned tennis balls alone year-round.
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