Police Find Hundreds of Pounds of Explosives in Germantown Home

Hundreds of pounds of explosives were found Tuesday in a home on the Menomonee Falls-Germantown border, and police spent most of Wednesday removing and detonating them.

After receiving a tip, Germantown police were sent to the home at about 2 p.m. Tuesday where they found explosives in the basement, and also found drugs in other parts of the home. Police arrested the 33-year-old man who lives there, and spent the Wednesday searching the rest of the property. He's currently being held on possesion of explosive devices, and will likely be charged early Thursday. 

"He's talking to us, but we're not real comfortable on the information he's giving us in terms of his intent," said Germantown Police Chief Peter Hoell. "But I do want to stress that there has been no indiciation that these were intendned to harm anybody or there were targets,"

A section of County Line Road near Fond Du Lac Avenue was shut down for much of the day Wednesday as officers, the Milwaukee County bomb unit and the ATF removed the explosives from the home, and detonated them in a local quarry. 

"We suspected there would be more explosives in the house, and we couldn't let the man's grandmother back into the home without searching every nook and cranny," Hoell said. 

The investigation was drawn out through much of the day because officers needed to issue a warrant to search a vehicle that was on the scene. A smaller amount of explosives were found in the vehicle as well. 

Hoell said it was fair to describe the types of explosives as fireworks, but didn't elaborate further. 

"They could be used for various things, some people have used them for entertainment legally, but I won't be getting any more descriptive," Hoell said. 

Hoell added that Germantown police had visited the home on numerous occasions in the past.