The 62 Precinct station house was packed this weekend — with explosives!
Two July 4 fanatics dropped off 1,735 sparklers, bottle rockets, firecrackers, and other small incendiary devices at the Bath Avenue station house on Saturday during the borough’s first-ever Fireworks Amnesty Day — which Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes is calling an explosive success.
“We’ll definitely do it again,” a Hynes spokesman said.
Cops said the two residents came into the station house knowing they could drop off their cache of fireworks without facing any repercussions.
“One of them dropped off a substantial amount of fireworks,” said Deputy Inspector James Rooney, the commanding officer of the 62nd Precinct, who said that people can continue to drop off unused fireworks at the station house even after July 4. “This was the first one, so it was pretty successful.”
The 1,735 fireworks may sound like a lot, but it only filled up two bags. Each and every low-grade fire cracker and sparkler — which come 76 to a box — were counted, prosecutors said.
Use of illegal fireworks has dwindled in Brooklyn, but the US Consumer Product Safety Commission claims that thousands of people are injured or maimed by fireworks each year.
Three people were killed and more than 8,600 people were injured in the US due to fireworks in 2010 alone, according to the Commission’s 2011 survey.
The explosives didn’t stay at the 62nd Precinct long — cops quickly handed over their haul to the NYPD’s bomb squad for disposal.
“They get rid of them right away,” said the DA spokesman. “It’s dangerous to keep them in the precinct.”
—with Daniel Solomon
Reach reporter Colin MIxson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4514.
