Landscape work unearths buried military shell at Omaha residence

It's not every day you find a mortar round when you're landscaping your backyard, but that's exactly what happened to one Omaha man Friday.

"I gotta be careful next time I dig," resident Roland Treu said.

At first, he thought it was a pipe, so Treu called OPPD to his home near 96th and Pacific streets. When they realized it was something more, they called Omaha Police to determine whether it was dangerous. The OPD bomb squad called the Air Force.

A closer examination by those in the know determined the old munition was likely not dangerous.

"They X-rayed it and diagnosed it," Treu said. "They think it's a dummy shell for the Navy."

OPD officers tweeted about the shell, calling it "a Navy drill round."

Treu didn't get to keep his find, however: The military took it away to dispose of it properly.