Police cleared an Amazon facility after the building received a bomb threat Tuesday, causing it to be searched by a bomb squad and a K-9 for four hours.
Gainesville Police Department officers responded to a written message on a whiteboard in the facility, located at 2121 NW 67th Place near Northside Park off of U.S. Route 441, around 9 a.m., GPD Chief Inspector Jamie Kurnick said. The message indicated the presence of a bomb in the building.
Police are still investigating the threat, Kurnick said, and no arrests have been made as of Tuesday afternoon.
Employees evacuated the building, and GPD deployed a bomb squad and a bomb-sniffing dog from the UF Police Department to investigate, Kurnick said.
Officers cleared the building, Kurnick said, and the facility has since returned to normal operations.
Under Florida statute, calling a false threat is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
GPD takes bomb threats seriously, Kurnick said, and with current resources and technology, police will almost certainly identify the offender. The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office successfully identified and arrested five students last year who made false bomb threats at Buchholz High School, Eastside High School, Hawthorne High School and Newberry High School.
This story is developing. Check back for updates.
Contact Heather at hbushman@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @hmb_1013.
Heather Bushman is a fourth-year journalism and political science student and the enterprise elections reporter. She previously wrote and edited for the Avenue desk and reported for WUFT News. You can usually find her writing, listening to music or writing about listening to music. Ask her about synesthesia or her album tier list sometime.
