BOMB SQUAD CALLED ON SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE IN MY CITY!!!
Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 3:16 pm
The discovery of a suspicious package closed shops in Hampton's Riverdale Shopping Plaza and Cinema Café near Coliseum Mall for more than six hours Friday.
An employee in a business in the 2000 block of Coliseum Drive called police just before 8:00 in the morning. A package that was not addressed to that business was deemed "suspicious" and the bomb squads moved in.
By 9:00 Hampton Police and Fire, The State Bomb Squad, Newport News Bomb Squad, FBI, and units from the Joint Terrorism Task Force sealed off an area 1000 feet around the package. That meant closing dozens of businesses near Coliseum Mall. The Mall remained open.
Lannie York wanted to walk to pay her bills in Riverdale Plaza. She was surprised she couldn't get through. "A package? Oh it sounds like they need to take care of that."
Tarica Brown showed up for work at Cinema Café at 11:00. "I wasn't really nervous trying to go in. I just didn't understand what everyone was doing here." Brown and her co-workers were sent away. Hampton Police used the Cinema café lobby as a command post.
At a few minutes past noon police moved everyone in the area into the Cinema café lobby. That included all their officers who were not involved in detonating the package. About 20 minutes later they said the package was destroyed and they allowed people to go outside.
Officers in tactical gear then went through all the surrounding buildings looking for other packages. By 1:30 nothing else had been found. Cinema Cafe was opened back up by 2:00 Friday afternoon
An employee in a business in the 2000 block of Coliseum Drive called police just before 8:00 in the morning. A package that was not addressed to that business was deemed "suspicious" and the bomb squads moved in.
By 9:00 Hampton Police and Fire, The State Bomb Squad, Newport News Bomb Squad, FBI, and units from the Joint Terrorism Task Force sealed off an area 1000 feet around the package. That meant closing dozens of businesses near Coliseum Mall. The Mall remained open.
Lannie York wanted to walk to pay her bills in Riverdale Plaza. She was surprised she couldn't get through. "A package? Oh it sounds like they need to take care of that."
Tarica Brown showed up for work at Cinema Café at 11:00. "I wasn't really nervous trying to go in. I just didn't understand what everyone was doing here." Brown and her co-workers were sent away. Hampton Police used the Cinema café lobby as a command post.
At a few minutes past noon police moved everyone in the area into the Cinema café lobby. That included all their officers who were not involved in detonating the package. About 20 minutes later they said the package was destroyed and they allowed people to go outside.
Officers in tactical gear then went through all the surrounding buildings looking for other packages. By 1:30 nothing else had been found. Cinema Cafe was opened back up by 2:00 Friday afternoon
Exciting! Glad it turned out to be nothing. Never can be too careful about stuff like that.