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Explosive acid found at Detroit bookstore
One thing led to another and hazmat crews ended up closing down the street and retrieving the item in question. I’m outside John K. King Used and Rare Books on Lafayette with an estimated one million old books inside. But among all the stacks of antique books, a staffer found a box full of bottles. One of the bottles was picric acid.
DETROIT (FOX 2) - A bizarre and potentially dangerous discovery was made at a used book store in Detroit. The staffer who found it knew she had to alert the fire department.
Detroit Bookstore with picric acid
Big picture view:
One thing led to another and hazmat crews ended up closing down the street and retrieving the item in question. It all took place at John K. King Used and Rare Books on Lafayette with an estimated one million old books inside. But among all the stacks of antique books, a staffer found a box full of bottles. One of the bottles was picric acid.
You’ve probably never heard of it, but the staffer knew, thanks to her studies in college, that picric can be explosive, especially if it’s crystallized, which it was.
The date on the bottle said 1901.
Picric acid was once used for burns and open wounds and also used to make explosives.
"Cause it was a possible explosive and from my reading and, like I said, I’m not the chemist," said Janelle Spann. "You might get feedback from people out there, but if you even unscrew it with the crystals, it’s not good, it could be dangerous."
"What I would like to do is tell people that if they have this in their basement or somewhere in a cupboard that they should be aware of its potential of destruction and do something about it carefully," said book store owner John K. King.
"Our book stores are full of treasures. This was a treasure we didn’t want to keep," said Janelle.
"Just I want to thank the first responders for their good work," said John.
How did it get there?
Dig deeper:
Now you may be wondering how the picric acid ended up inside the bookstore?
Well, both Janelle and John say a friend had given them a bunch of antique bottles more than 30 years ago. They stashed the box away and didn’t open it, until now.
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The Source: FOX 2 used information from John K. King Used and Rare Books in this story.