Texarkana SWAT investigate explosive device in camper trailer

TEXARKANA, Texas (KTAL/KMSS) — Texarkana, TX police say a relatively straightforward attempt by officers to serve a warrant Tuesday night turned into a stand-off that forced SWAT and a bomb disposal unit to be called in. Officers say they had been attempting to take 59-year old Ronnie Maples into custody at the KOA campground on a warrant out of Fannin County, TX for failure to register as a sex offender.

“We were told that there was a man there who had a felony warrant. We had told that he’d been violent in the past, so we sent officers out there,” said Shawn Vaughn with the Texarkana, TX Police Department.

Officers say they witnessed movement inside his parked travel trailer, but he was not responding to police.

“As officers were backing away from the home to figure out what to do next, they looked in the truck and inside the front seat they could see what appeared to be like a improvised pipe bomb or something to that nature,” said Vaughn.

The SWAT team was called in, and the Barksdale Air Force Base Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Unit was contacted.

“The first priority there was to deal with the safety of everybody else, not knowing exactly if that was in fact an explosive device and what other devices may or may not be in the trailer. So they evacuated the perimeter around the area,” said Vaughn.

Maples did not respond to the SWAT team’s attempts to communicate and convince him to leave the trailer, so eventually the team deployed CS gas into the trailer.

“Almost immediately, Ronnie Maples… came out the other side of the trailer and was met by officers there and taken into custody,” said Vaughn.

Shortly afterwards, the EOD team arrived on the scene and determined the device was only a convincing fake.

“As a matter of fact, I think they sent a picture to the EOD guys before they were in the process of getting the information to them, and they said, well, it definitely looks like a bomb to them,” said Vaughn.

Maples was charged with possession of a hoax bomb, a Class A Misdemeanor. He will be held in the Bi-state Jail until his new charge is resolved, and then will be returned to Fannin County to face his original charges.