Man charged for possessing hand grenades

POST FALLS - A 33-year-old Post Falls man was charged on Thursday with possessing three government-issued hand grenades after a bomb squad and police seized the devices.

Raymond Edwin Ruprecht was charged for felony possession of unlawful destructive devices and stolen property. He was already being held at the Kootenai County jail on a combined $25,000 bond as he was arrested on Tuesday for two counts of burglary, two counts of grand theft and fraudulent use of a bank card.

"Our investigation indicates that he received the grenades somehow through his military service, but we're not exactly sure how," Post Falls Police Detective Neil Uhrig said. "He says he served 12 years in the military, but didn't say where."

Uhrig said the recovery of the grenades "went off without a hitch."

"We're grateful that everything went well and that the issue was resolved in an expeditious manner," he said. "The grenades were determined to be live, but had their safety features still intact."

Uhrig said the grenades were in the basement in a home in the 500 block of West 12th Avenue.

"He had them in a place where it would be difficult to have access to them, but I still would not feel comfortable with them being in my house," Uhrig said. "He had them in a safe place, but things could still happen."

Uhrig said Ruprecht's wife was home when the Spokane Regional Bomb Squad received a call on Tuesday from an undisclosed person - not Ruprecht's wife - of the grenades at the house. The bomb squad called upon Post Falls police at 5:30 p.m. to respond to the home to verify that the grenades were there.

"The best evidence I have is that she had no idea that they were there," Uhrig said. "She was cooperative and allowed us to check."

The home was evacuated after the grenades were found, but the neighborhood was not, due to where the grenades were found, Uhrig said.

After the grenades were confirmed, the bomb squad responded to handle the devices. A unit from Fairchild Air Force Base then seized the grenades around 9 p.m. due to them being the property of the federal government.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Kootenai County Fire and Rescue also assisted.