Grant County Sheriff’s Office safely disposed of homemade explosive device
By Logan Bagett on Thursday, February 12th, 2026 in Eastern/Southeast Oregon News More Top Stories
JOHN DAY –Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley reports that GCSO personnel responded to a reported bomb last weekend in a remote area of Grant County. The Sheriff was on KJDY’s Coffee Time Wednesday and explained the situation to listeners:
“Over the weekend, we had a reported bomb up Vance Creek. It was an explosive device. That was taken care of on Saturday. When I say ‘bomb’, it was just somebody trying to get rid of a bunch of gunpowder and it didn’t work out very well, and they left it in a device that they created. So, we had to have that destroyed.”
Sheriff McKinley said a big concern around the situation was how the device was left:
“The concern was they left it on a gate that was locked, and the person trying to access that gate didn’t know if they were trying to damage the gate, or what was going on. [The subject(s)] left it in an area where it could have caused a problem for them.”
The investigation is ongoing. Listen to the full podcast with Sheriff McKinley below:
