(Update 8:45 a.m.) Arlington police and the bomb squad closed the street in front of the TSA headquarters in Pentagon City for the third time in just over a week due to a suspicious package.
The package — described as a duffel bag or a backpack — was found on the 600 block of 12th Street S. around 6:15 a.m. The bomb squad carefully inspected the package and set up charges to “disrupt” it.
The “all clear” was given by a bomb technician just past 8:15 a.m. The road is now being reopened, as is the east entrance to the Pentagon City Metro station.
This was the third suspicious package on the same block in just over a week. Police say they don’t have any evidence of criminal activity.
“There’s a lot of construction in the area — a lot of laborers and construction workers bringing their stuff to that area, and with the heightened alert and the TSA headquarters there” authorities are taking every precaution, said Arlington County Police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck. “We take every suspicious package call seriously, and it’s our duty and job to go out there and investigate and assume that it’s potentially hazardous.”
Photo courtesy Patrick McNeil