Longview — A Longview grocery quietly emptied Sunday afternoon as a bomb squad was summoned from Bossier City to deal with what turned out to be a harmless — yet mysterious — pipe filled with papers.

“They were able to use their equipment to, basically, shoot water into the device,” Longview Police spokeswoman Kristie Brian said at about 5:20 p.m. in the parking lot at Albertsons on North Loop 281 at McCann Road.

Technicians from the Bossier City Fire Department used a robot to drag the roughly 12-inch long pipe with caps at each end, from the bed of a Chevrolet pickup where it had been noticed by the Chevy’s driver. The squad intentionally set off a small explosive on the device once it had been dragged to a clear area of the parking lot, leading onlookers in the French Quarter shopping center to think the device had been a bomb.

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