Akron City Hall evacuated after man named ‘Kaboom’ forgets walking stick

It can lead some to panic, as it did Wednesday morning at Akron City Hall.

Akron resident Natural Hunka Kaboom, 65, a regular at Akron City Council meetings, attended Monday’s session and left his metal walking stick outside the council chambers when he left.

The discovery of the rod on the building’s third floor Wednesday prompted an evacuation of City Hall for a short time.

The false alarm has made Kaboom a popular figure, as local media seized on his name and the uproar it caused temporarily.

“I never thought I’d make the news that way,” Kaboom said Wednesday afternoon outside his Uhler Avenue home in Akron’s North Hill neighborhood. “I never meant for this to happen.”

Kaboom said he had no idea of the evacuation until reporters contacted him. He said he talked to several officers Wednesday morning as he was walking to a bus stop to go shopping. They never mentioned the stick nor the evacuation.

“They were very nice, but they didn’t say a thing,” he said.

The “pipe” is actually an extendable shower rod used as a walking stick and owned by Kaboom, which is his real name. Court records show Kaboom legally changed his name in 2009 from James Louis Krosner.

Kaboom said he made the name change official three years ago, but he’s been using the moniker for years. It started as a way to promote his former pest control business, he said.

His homemade rod is about 4 feet long with duct tape on each end. His full name, “Natural Hunka Kaboom,” and other words were scrawled on the pipe, authorities said.

The stick’s discovery about 8:30 a.m., coupled with Kaboom’s explosive name, caused enough of a panic that dozens of workers were evacuated. Some at City Hall took the name on the rod as a threat.

Workers were sent outside while a police dog searched the building for any explosives. The workers were allowed back into the building just before 10 a.m.