How dumb can you be??

[bcdphie]

In case anyone is wondering there is plenty of signage as you head up the I-5 through Blaine to say you are going to Canada...

Lost driver with grenade snarls B.C. border crossing


By MARK HUME,
With a report from Canadian Press
Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - Page A1

VANCOUVER -- A map would have been handy, but an American woman who was stopped at the Peace Arch border crossing yesterday, 400 kilometres off course, was carrying something else in her glove compartment.

A hand grenade.

When Canada Customs found the item during a search of her vehicle, a green Ford Explorer with Texas licence plates, they took her into custody and closed the busiest border crossing in Western Canada for almost an hour.

The RCMP bomb squad retrieved the hand grenade, which Canada Customs officials thought might be live. (KOMO, a U.S. television station, described it as "an old military dummy/souvenir grenade.")

The 28-year-old woman, whose husband is in the U.S. military, stationed at Ft. Lewis, Wash., was apparently trying to get to Vancouver, Wash., which is about 400 kilometres south. Instead she was going north up Interstate 5, headed for Vancouver, B.C. The route took her directly to the Canada Customs booth near Blaine, Wash.

RCMP spokesman Constable Tim Shields said the woman, whose name wasn't released, was following highway signs and wasn't aware she was headed in the wrong direction. He also said she apparently didn't know about the grenade in the glove box of her husband's car.

"It's quite likely this woman did not know that the grenade was inside her vehicle and she is apparently quite shaken up by the whole ordeal, so charges are quite unlikely," Constable Shields said.

The woman was released later in the day. She got into her truck and drove away without commenting to news reporters.

Constable Shields said the security clampdown began after a customs officer started to search the woman's car.

"The border was shut down for the safety of the public. The RCMP's explosives disposal unit was called in and they safely removed the grenade and the border is now back open," he said.

Late yesterday afternoon, he said the RCMP were trying to determine if the grenade was a dummy or contained explosives.

Mike Milne, a Seattle-based spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, confirmed the border crossing at Blaine had been shut down in both directions after the car was stopped at 1 p.m., but he declined to comment on what the Canadian guards may have found.

Traffic was routed a few kilometres east to Pacific Highway, which has a border crossing typically used by commercial trucks.