Business searched after handgun magazine found - WQOW TV: Eau Claire, WI NEWS18 News, Weather, and Sports

Prescott (WQOW) - A discovery at a western Wisconsin manufacturing plant leads to a shutdown of the facility and a search of the building.

On Thursday, Prescott police say employees at the Bergquist Company found a magazine for a 45-caliber handgun on a chair in the employee break room.  The magazine had eight shells in it. One-hundred workers were sent home as a precaution.  A search of the building did not turn up a gun or anyone who should not have been in the building.

The police chief says there had not been any threats recently.  He says the magazine could have simply fallen out of the pocket of an employee and there may never have been an actual gun in the building.  Employees were not searched. 

The chief tells us the level of response was due to a heightened awareness of guns due to the recent shootings at a Connecticut school and a mall in Oregon.