SAN FRANCISCO -- A man exploring Golden Gate Park with a metal detector Thursday stumbled on a buried, World War II-era hand grenade, San Francisco police said.
The man was walking near Mallard Lake on the 1300 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive about 1:10 p.m. when his metal detector registered a find, said Officer Carlos Manfredi, a police spokesman.
"He went to dig it up and noticed it looked like a hand grenade and called us," Manfredi said. "He sees it and says, 'OK, time to call police.' "
The bomb squad closed the street, then rendered the grenade safe at about 3:30 p.m., said police spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak.
Police don't know how the grenade ended up in the park, but they doubt there are more.
"It took someone with a metal detector to locate it and uncover the earth to dig it up," Andraychak said. "Things turn up in places from time to time. It's hard to explain why."