Tallahassee Election Building evacuated due to a bomb threat

Woody Box

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Mon Nov-29-04 05:04 AM
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Tallahassee Election Building evacuated due to a bomb threat

I'm posting this as a stand-in for Stacy Lowman (lowmanknows) who has detected the stuff but obviously as a newbie is not able to open a thread on her own. I think her findings might be important.

The central tabulating of the Florida votes was done in the RA Gray Building in Tallahassee. This building was evacuated for five hours in the morning of Nov 1 due to a bomb threat.

I agree with Stacy that this message is sufficient to raise suspicion.

Stacy refers to this link:

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/politics/news-article.aspx?storyid=26823

State elections workers got off to a slow start this morning after, tallahassee police evacuated their building. Investigators called in the bomb squad after finding a suspicious package.

"We're on the cautious side being an election year, we called in a hazardous device team, which is the bomb squad. They're sweeping the building now," says John Newland of the Tallahassee Police Department.

The package turned out to be harmless and employees returned to work at noon.

With a google seaarch, I found three more sources for the incident:

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/11/02/Decision2004/Will_Florida_replay_2.shtml

As if Florida's election system weren't already stretched enough, employees in Florida's main elections office in Tallahassee arrived at work Monday morning to find their building surrounded by police and a bomb squad truck parked out front. A security guard had reported a suspicious package that appeared to vibrate in a storage room for the state's archives, which shares the R.A. Gray Building. It turned out to be a bundle of documents being blown by an air vent.

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041101/NEWS0107/41101001/1001/ARCHIVES

TALLAHASSEE -- Department of State employees returned to their evacuated building at 11:45 after being shut out all morning because of a suspicious package discovered inside.

Tallahassee police said the package was "rattling" and led to the security guard's concern. Police said the package was harmless.

Officials said the evacuation did not disrupt early voting or Election Day preparations.

Contract security guards found the suspect package about 5:30 a.m. on the fourth floor of the R.A. Gray Building, two blocks west of the Capitol, said Alia Faraj, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda Hood. Law enforcement, fire fighters, explosive-sniffing dogs and a bomb-squad robot all scoured the five-story building. The package was discovered in an area that stores quilts and other artwork that is part of the department's historic archive.

Streets east and west of the R.A. Gray building were shut down for about three hours as Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Tallahassee Police Department and Tallahassee Fire Department personnel worked the building.

More than 200 Department of State employees were kept out of the building, moved to the Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center across the street where they waited out the building search. Hood, Faraj said, worked out of the Capitol while the Gray building was inaccessible.

http://www.flanews.com/november/1101Bomb.htm

The final day of early voting got off to a rocky start at the state elections office in Tallahassee when the building had to be evacuated. An employee arriving for work at 6:30 in the morning heard a suspicious noise coming from a package on the fifth floor of the R. A. Gray building and the Tallahassee Police Department bomb squad was called in. But spokesperson for the Secretary of State Alia Faraj says the disruption at the state elections office will not affect tomorrow’s vote.

“We have a process in place. Supervisors of Elections across the state have a great handle on what’s going on. We just oversee the process in Tallahassee. So, absolutely there’s going to be a couple of hours of delay, but we also have offices that are spread out in Tallahassee, so this really will not cause any concerns for us,” says Alia Faraj.

The box turned out to be harmless…… it was filled with paperwork. Police say the mysterious rattling noise was caused by an air vent that was blocked by the box of papers.

So what caused the alarm? We have three different versions:

- a bunch of documents that appeared to vibrate
- a suspicious "rattling" package
- a box filled with paperwork,

disturbed by an air vent (the articles agree in that at all).

It stretches my imagination that the employee who detected the package didn't realize that it was a simple air current which caused the noise. I don't see how this "bunch of documents" or "box" creates a noise that is similar to a ticking bomb.

200 employess had to be held out of the building due to this false observation. This is ridiculous.

Yes, Stacy, I think you are up to something.

This is really fishy.