NEW YORK -- National Car Rental employees at LaGuardia Airport received a scare last Thursday after they discovered a gun and what appeared to be a bomb in the trunk of a minivan. However, the police department's bomb squad determined that the bomblike device was nothing more than a clock tied to two road flares, according to a news report published in the New York Daily News.

Police said the clock had no way of igniting the flares.

The minivan had just been returned to National's garage after a renter apparently abandoned the vehicle in Astoria. The customer had failed to return the car on June 23.

The bomb scare shut down National Car Rental's operations at LaGuardia for about 90 minutes.

According to Associated Press reports, police have charged the renter of the car, Kareem Davis, with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

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