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Suspicious Duffel Bag at Federal Building Draws Juneau's Bomb Squad

A suspicious duffel bag left in the post office parking lot outside Juneau’s downtown Federal Building on Monday drew out the bomb squad.

Police cordoned off the area, but the building wasn’t evacuated.

Lt. Kris Sell with the Juneau Police Department says their initial call was “that a woman who was running for some unknown reason threw down a duffel bag and left it in the parking lot.”

Sell says the woman came back about 25 minutes later and tried to reclaim the bag, but at that point police erred on the side of caution and inspected the bag as if it were a bomb. It wasn’t.

The woman isn’t in custody and hasn’t been identified, though police want to talk to her and have surveillance video.

“If the woman who jettisoned the bag and then came back for it could contact us to talk to us, that would save us a little bit of leg work in the investigation,” Sell said. “We’d sure like to have a conversation with her and know what’s going go.  Not that she’s necessarily in any trouble.”

There was nothing illegal in bag. Sell says the investigation is ongoing.

Jeremy Hsieh is the training editor of the Alaska Desk.
Reach Jeremy at jhsieh@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8428.