Box By Post Office Draws Bomb Team

Tue., Aug. 5, 1997

From Staff And Wire Reports

Spokane police halted traffic on two blocks of Riverside Avenue and called in the bomb disposal team Monday after a passer-by spotted a suspicious package near the downtown post office.

Turns out it was just a box.

Someone on their way to work saw the package on the steps of the post office at Riverside and Lincoln just after 4 a.m., police spokesman Dick Cottam said.

In a town where domestic terrorists have bombed a bank, a Planned Parenthood clinic and a newspaper office, authorities took no chances.

They roped off Riverside between Post and Monroe and brought in Elvis, the bomb squad’s remote-controlled robot.

Authorities used Elvis to tear into the box and grab a can that was inside. The robot carried the can to a trailer designed to withstand explosions and police drove it away.

Cottam said the can didn’t contain explosives. It was probably just trash that somebody left there, he said.

“They don’t even think it was a hoax,” Cottam said.

Police reopened Riverside about 7 a.m.

, DataTimes

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