Police in New York state have denied reports of a bomb being found in a car inside the security perimeter of the site of an upcoming rally for US presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The Republican presidential nominee is scheduled to speak at the Long Island venue, just east of New York City, on Wednesday evening.
“Sources in the Nassau County Police Department just told me that ‘the perimeter was breached and a blue barrel was removed’ from the area surrounding tonight’s Trump rally site,” One America News (OANN) journalist James Lalino said on X.
According to Lalino’s source, a police dog “found an explosive device in one of the vehicles and that the driver ended up running into the woods. No one saw if he had anything on him, they just saw him take off running.”
Nassau County Police later refuted Lalino’s report, however.
“Reports of explosives being found at the site are unfounded,” Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder told reporters. “There is a person who is being questioned who may have been training a bomb detection dog near the site.”
“The individual with the bomb dog falsely reported explosives being found, and that individual is currently being detained by the police,” Ryder added.
Thousands of Republican supporters have already queued up outside Nassau Coliseum, where Trump is supposed to speak at 7pm local time. Some have reportedly camped outside overnight, to get good seats inside the arena.
Trump has moved his rallies to indoor venues after surviving an assassination attempt at the July 13 outdoor gathering in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shooter fired at least eight times, nicking Trump’s ear, killing one audience member and seriously injuring two more, before he was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
The alleged bomb report comes just three days after the Secret Service intercepted a would-be assassin at Trump’s golf resort in Florida. Identified as Ryan Routh, the suspect fled the scene leaving a long rifle with a scope behind.
Trump and his running mate JD Vance have blamed the Democrats’ incendiary rhetoric for the repeated attempts on the Republican candidate’s life. Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is his rival for the presidency in the upcoming November election, have called Trump a “threat to our democracy.”