New evacuation at Time Warner Center, home of CNN HQ, over 'suspicious package'

26 Oct, 2018 00:17 / Updated 6 years ago

Police briefly evacuated the Time Warner Center in New York for a second time in two days as a precaution after finding two unattended packages at a mall located in the building.

The evacuation came on the heels of Wednesday’s bomb scare, in which an explosive device addressed to former CIA director John Brennan was discovered in CNN’s mail room. That device was one of 10 mailed to prominent Democrats and other public figures who have been critical of the Trump administration.

Shortly before the Thursday evacuation, a Florida courthouse was evacuated when officials discovered a suspicious device with protruding wires in the building. Federal investigators are zeroing in on South Florida as the origin of the packages, none of which exploded and all of which were intercepted before reaching their targets.

Police evacuated the first, second, and third floors of the shopping center “out of an abundance of caution” as they investigated the suspicious items. The CNN offices do not appear to have been affected.

The NYPD gave the all-clear about an hour after the evacuation, after investigating the packages and determining they were not a threat.