SOUTH BEND — A suspicious aerosol can left in the health and beauty section at the Walmart, 3701 Portage Road, South Bend, prompted a store evacuation of customers and staff Monday night.

South Bend Police spokesman Capt. Phil Trent said an active military member was shopping when he noticed something that looked like an IED — an improvised explosive device.

Trent said the initial call came in around 4:45 p.m. A South Bend Bomb Squad Technician arrived on scene a short time later and determined the object did, in fact, look suspicious.

Police evacuated the store and sent in the Bomb Squad robot to pull the device out. Trent said the device was not a bomb, but part of an aerosol deodorant can that was apparently not packaged correctly.

"The robot looked at it, manipulated it a little bit, and found what was at the bottom of this device was a piece of machining actually used to assemble the merchandise," Trent said. "It must have broken off the machine in the manufacturing process."

Trent said the man who thought the package looked suspicious did the right thing by alerting store managers.

"We'd rather err on the side of caution every time and it just turn out to be nothing," he said.

The store was open by 8 p.m.