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The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office recovered a barrage of military devices, including mortars and grenades, Wednesday afternoon in a basement in Hales Corners, authorities said Thursday.

Sheriff's deputies arrived at the residence in the 5500 block of S. 92nd St. at 2:30 p.m. They discovered 15 hand grenades, one mortar shell, one stick grenade, 18 military and parachute flares, and a light anti-tank weapon, sheriff's spokeswoman Fran McLaughlin said in a news release. Some of them were live, McLaughlin said. Technicians from the Sheriff's Office Explosive Ordnance Detection Bomb Squad retrieved the military devices, and destruction of the items was pending, McLaughlin said.

The owner of the items was a retired Milwaukee police officer who was also a collector, Hales Corners Police Detective Kent Schoonover said Thursday. The man's family called the Hales Corners Police Department after he died Wednesday, asking police to remove the items.

Schoonover said that as a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard the man was an extremely careful and safe-minded individual who had everything securely stored.

"There was no danger to the neighborhood, there was no danger to the citizens, there was no danger to the family. It's just that these items are beyond our expertise so we called the sheriff's department for assistance," Schoonover said. "It doesn't happen every day, but there's nothing else to this. He was just an avid collector. He was not doing anything dangerous."