Police turned out in force Thursday afternoon to investigate a call about a suspicious device in the back of a truck on Tremont Street at the corner of West Fillmore Street.

Two landscapers, Victor Ramirez and Marvin Owens of Griffith Maintenance and Irrigation, were working at a strip of businesses at 2900 Beacon St. when they found an object wrapped in small shopping bags.

According to Ramirez, Owens was the first to handle it.

“We thought it was a beer bottle because we get a lot of people who drink and leave them behind, so we threw it in the bucket and put it in the back of the truck,” Owens said.

But when Ramirez consolidated the trash in the back of their truck at their next job on Tremont Street, what he found startled him.

“I thought it was just trash until I saw the watch and propane,” Owens said. “I don’t know if it was built to go off or just to be intimidating, but by God, that’s what it did.”

Owens said that Ramirez appeared to be in shock and that he had to yell at him to put the device down and get out.

The two called the police about 12:30 p.m. and spent more than four and a half hours waiting for the area to be cleared.

The Regional Explosives Unit brought in a robot to X-ray the truck and determine if the device was explosive, but police decided that it was too dangerous to move the object it to take the required pictures.

“We don’t want to do it here because of the residents nearby,” said Barbara Miller, Colorado Springs police spokeswoman.

The device was taken to Clear Springs Ranch near Fort Carson in a transport vehicle to determine if it was dangerous and to detonate it safely if so. No further information was available late Thursday.

Filllmore Street was closed for more than 10 minutes while the device was removed from the landscaping truck by the robot, and just after 5 p.m. the transport left and Tremont Street was re-opened.

“Both of us picked it up and handled it. We’re really lucky,” Owens said. “That’s God right there.”

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Contact Lauren Fellers: 636-0198.