San Diego venue’s schedule delayed by scare

SAN DIEGO – The arena for the first-round NCAA men’s tournament game between Alabama and Marquette was temporarily evacuated Thursday after bomb-sniffing dogs detected “something strange” on a food vendor’s cart about two hours before tipoff.

After the FBI, police and security officials checked, the all-clear was given at Cox Arena two hours later. The game began at 12:50 p.m. – 70 minutes after the original start time.

“Ultimately, after a period of time, it was determined that there was not a hazard, explosive, biohazard, whatever you would like to call it, associated with that cart,” said Lt. Robert McManus, incident commander for the San Diego State police department.

The large silver cart, filled with condiments, straws and paper towels among other items, initially drew the suspicion of one dog, McManus said. Another dog detected the same thing.

“Two other dogs were brought in and they didn’t smell it,” he said.

FBI spokeswoman Jan Caldwell initially said the dogs detected a package inside a 4-by-6-inch condiment container in the cart located on the upper concourse of San Diego State’s arena. A bomb robot was sent to the scene, she said.

“Ultimately, there was not an object. It was the cart in general that was under suspicion when the dogs alerted on it,” McManus said. He said investigators were not sure what the first two dogs detected.