Police made a shocking discovery when they uncovered a U.S. Army rocket launcher hiding underneath the seat of a "suspicious" truck that was parked outside of a motel in Massachusetts.
The incident unfolded Monday in Sutton, about 50 miles southwest of Boston, where Detective Alex Sinni was doing some surveillance on a vehicle in the parking lot of the Red Roof Inn, according to the Sutton Police Department.
The driver had been sitting in the vehicle, which was parked away from any rooms, for about 30 minutes and Sinni thought it was "a bit weird," he told The Associated Press. The detective approached the vehicle and started talking with the driver, identified as Harvey Johnson, when he spotted "items typically used in conjunction with illegal narcotics use," police said.
During a search of the vehicle, Sinni found an M190 U.S. Army Rocket Launcher under the backseat.
"Once we were able to determine it was unloaded, we secured it," Sinni told the AP. "And then we searched the rest of the vehicle to make sure there were no explosives or rockets, or anything crazy like that."
While he didn't discover anything else "crazy," Sinni did find "a small amount" of crack cocaine, police said.
When Sinni asked Johnson what he planned to do with the weapon, he was "pretty vague" about his intentions, the detective told the AP.
Johnson is now facing charges of possession of crack cocaine and possession/control of an incendiary device.
The rocket launcher has since been turned over to the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. According to the AP, "the M190 is a training model of the M72 light anti-tank weapon that was first used in the Vietnam War era."