Bomb squad removes dynamite from porch

CRESTVIEW - A bomb squad disposed of a stash of decades-old dynamite Monday after it was stolen and left on a grandmother's porch, authorities say.

Lawmen are calling it "ditching dynamite," a nitroglycerin-based dynamite once used by farmers to remove stumps.

Christopher Gorum, 30, has been charged with burglary, theft and possession of a destructive device. He was released from the Okaloosa County jail before noon Tuesday.

Okaloosa County sheriff's deputies and Crestview police were at a house on Farmer Street in Crestview when the dynamite was discovered Monday evening.

It had been stolen from a shed behind a home on Texas Parkway, they said.

A bomb squad from Bay County brought a remote-controlled "Wolverine" robot to move the dynamite from the porch to a safer place in the yard, where "appropriate disposal methods were used to render the materials safe," according to a statement from Ruth Sasser, spokeswoman for the Bay County Sheriff's Office.

Back in the shed that held the dynamite, bomb squad members said some nitroglycerin had leached into a table. The area was thermally treated for safety.

The Bay County bomb squad was in Fort Walton Beach earlier this month after someone threw a pipe bomb though a window of a home on Alder Avenue.

No one was hurt in either incident.