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Package near courthouse sparks another bomb scare
By SHANNON OLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published August 10, 2005
TAMPA - A suspicious package outside the federal courthouse in downtown Tampa on Tuesday turned out to be nothing more than a cardboard box filled with papers, but it caused a scare nonetheless.
It was the second time in less than a week that a suspicious package disrupted life downtown. Jurors in the Sami Al-Arian trial were sent home early Tuesday afternoon, but were not told the reason.
Law enforcement officers shut down the streets surrounding the courthouse for nearly 11/2 hours while the Tampa Police Department bomb squad used a robot and a high-powered water cannon to dismantle the package and determine its contents.
U.S. Marshals Service spokeswoman Lisa Alfonso said Federal Protective Services officers, charged with securing the courthouse's perimeter, noticed the cardboard box about 2 p.m. near a bus stop on the southeast corner of the courthouse, at E Polk Street and N Marion Avenue.
The box was about 24 inches by 6 inches, Tampa police spokesman Joe Durkin said.
The U.S. Marshals Service contacted Tampa police officers assigned to the courthouse, and those officers called in the bomb squad.
The courthouse was not evacuated, Alfonso said. But police shut down surrounding streets while the bomb squad's robot inspected the package, which contained nothing more than papers, Durkin said.
Detectives will sift through the papers to try to determine who they belonged to, Durkin said.
Friday during the morning rush hour, about 3,000 HARTline passengers had their buses rerouted as authorities investigated a suspicious backpack left in a trash can at the bus terminal on Marion Street. The police bomb squad determined the bag contained personal items, including clothes and a shaving kit.
A similar incident occurred last March when a suspicious backpack was found outside the U.S. District Courthouse garage entrance on the same day that the parents of Terri Schiavo were asking a federal judge to have their daughter's feeding tube reinserted. It, too, was found to be harmless.
[Last modified August 10, 2005, 00:36:13]
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