Liberty Island Evacuated After Discovery Of Suspicious Package

Statue of Liberty seen from the Circle Line ferry, Manhattan, New York
Wikimedia Commons
John Hayward

NBC News reports “the Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island were both being evacuated Friday afternoon after parks police received a report of a suspicious package.”

The package was discovered near a visitors’ locker area by police dogs. The NYPD bomb squad was called in, and a security sweep of the island performed, while tourists were taken off the island by ferry as a precaution.

Gothamist collected Twitter traffic from tourists on the island, one of whom reported seeing a SWAT team. Another uploaded video of the evacuation:

There are reports on social media that Ellis Island has been evacuated as well.

Shawn Nottingham of CNN Tweeted that the situation involved more than just the random discovery of a suspicious package – a bomb  threat was telephoned into the Statue of Liberty office around noon, and mentioned a package inside a locker, which appears to be just what the police dogs found.

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