Chattanooga police officers hold their fingers to their ears to stifle the sound of the Chattanooga Bomb squad destroying a package found behind the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Building Friday afternoon. At around 1:30 a package was left behind the building and was investigated by police. It was found not to be an explosive but was destroyed by the Chattanooga Bomb Squad.
Investigators are looking for a man who set a small package at a back door of Chattanooga’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court building Friday afternoon, triggering an evacuation of three downtown government buildings.
Chattanooga police bomb squad members determined the small package contained no explosives, but not before cordoning off the block, stationing firetrucks along the perimeters and sending a carefully suited bomb technician to check it out.
“You just never know,” said police spokesman Officer Nathan Hartwig. “Some people have a vendetta against big government or some measure they don’t like.”
The package, covered in metallic wrapping, was found on the building’s west side about 1:30 p.m., Hartwig said, and security officials were alerted. Police blew up the package.
When reviewing surveillance video, officials saw a black man in a red jersey, shorts and backward-facing New York Yankees ball cap set the package down at the entrance and walk away.