Putnam County Goodwill evacuated after grenade found in donation bin

actionnewsjax.com/news ^ | December 11, 2025 | Chase Bunker

[V_TWIN]

PALATKA, Fla — A Palatka Goodwill was evacuated after police say a live hand grenade was found in a donation bin. The Palatka Police Department says the building was evacuated out of an abundance of caution. In a post on social media, the Palatka Police Department says the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office’s Bomb Squad was called in to assist in the situation, where they took the grenade to a secure location and detonated it remotely. "We want to remind the community to thoroughly check all items before donating, ensuring that hazardous items, such as explosives, firearms, or ammunition, are not accidentally included," says the Palatka Police Department. The agency says if you ever encounter a hand grenade or other explosive device, don’t touch or handle it, leave the area, and call law enforcement.

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TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: florida; goodwill

[V_TWIN]

[Ezekiel]

Pin this one on Florida Man.

[Tom Tetroxide]

I’m just going to blame Florida Grenade for this one!

[Ezekiel]

Tis the Season -

Peace on Earth Goodwill Towards Men.

Yet some people just aren’t grenatful.

[lowbridge]

[butlerweave]

My brother looks through the dollar bins and he’s found lots of stuff but never a Grenade ,LOL

[Freedom4US]

“We want to remind the community to thoroughly check all items before donating”

Yep. Those hand grenades can slip into just about anything if you’re not careful. Could happen to anybody, really.

[cgbg]

Article:

“if you ever encounter a hand grenade or other explosive device, don’t touch or handle it”

Imagine the IQ of their audience who needs to be told that one....

Lol.

[Freedom4US]

Every 1st Sergeant had one of those on his desk. Maybe they had a NSN and were supplied with the desk, not sure? LOL

I would he willing to bet when they use the term “live hand grenade” they don’t know what that means. 99.99% are probably inert novelty items, or maybe blue training replicas, etc.

[SunkenCiv]

On a related note, I’ll guess that someone on PINterest has a grenades page.

[Quickgun]

LOL.. Don’t accidently leave grenades in your pockets when donating clothing to good will...My,my, people getting so absent minded.

[V_TWIN]

“Imagine the IQ of their audience who needs to be told that one”
-

If you were familiar with Palatka it would make perfect sense........living an hour from there I hear a lot about that town.

As I understand it, it’s now the meth mecca of North Florida.......that might explain the explosives.

This was last year 👇

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2024/04/08/man-held-without-bond-after-chemical-pipe-bomb-explodes-on-putnam-county-deputy-during-traffic-stop/

[Ezekiel]

You have to figure that an account like that would go down in a flash for violating community standards or whatnot.

That's why you'd have to search for PINterest pages devoted to "pomegranates".

[catnipman]

the same folks for whom signs like the following are necessary:

BTW, these are real signs posted in the canyons in Colorado ...

we have these in Colorado too:

[SunkenCiv]

Or Grenada.

[Larry Lucido]

Does the donor still get the tax deduction?

[oldtech]

Is it safe to assume that the person who donated this item knew what he was donating?

[Rockingham]

Palatka is a very Florida kind of place. It was an old logging and river town for many years before the logging mostly played out. Now it is a relatively cheap place to live with rural homes on tracts of wooded acreage. That makes for the kind of privacy that meth cooks and other criminals crave.