Heightened Alert on Sept. 11 Anniversary Led to Courthouse Evacuations in 3 States Today
As many yesterday and today commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a reported credible threat of a plan to set off a bomb in New York or Washington, D.C., led to increased watchfulness nationwide.
However, despite concerns about a possible bomb that resulted in evacuations of a Wayne County, N.C., courthouse and a federal courthouse in West Palm Beach, Fla., there was no actual bomb.
The N.C. scare involved a package that apparently was set up to look like a fake bomb, according to the Associated Press and the Goldsboro News-Argus.
The Fort Lauderdale situation involved a suspicious truck, as the Palm Beach Post and South Florida Sun Sentinel report. An article in the Sarasota Herald Tribune provides additional details.
Likewise, a bomb threat made concerning a Dallas County, Texas, courthouse that was also evacuated did not result in the discovery of any actual bomb, reports NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.
Meanwhile, police were searching vehicles in midtown Manhattan over the weekend and U.S. marshals armed with machine guns were guarding the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, N.Y., the Associated Press recounts.
The New York Times reports additional precautions throughout the country and concerns about airline passengers on a couple of planes, but no actual incidents of terrorism, large or small.
The 9/11 memorial plaza opened to the public this morning, under tight, airport-style security, reports the New York Post. Reflecting ponds and etched names of victims now mark the site where, until they were struck by two hijacked commercial airplanes a decade ago, the World Trade Center’s twin towers once stood.
