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Bomb threat shuts down Main Street
Friday, March 20, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by ELIZABETH HARFORD
Downtown Prince Frederick was in deadlock Thursday morning after a bomb threat was made against the courthouse.
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A bomb threat at the Calvert County Courthouse shortly after 8 a.m. on Thursday caused confusion and traffic when police blocked off all roads that lead to downtown Main Street during the morning rush hour.
A call to 911 came into the Calvert County Control Center about 8:15 a.m. and a man said, "He wanted the sheriff to know that he was going to blow up the courthouse," said Calvert County Sheriff Mike Evans.
In response, law enforcement immediately blocked off all roads leading to Main Street in front of the courthouse. With road crews also working on Route 4 from Old Field Lane north to Church Street, drivers trying to get to work were met with the chaos of crammed roads and confused drivers.
The suspect said he was upset about not being able to attend his father's funeral because he was in jail, Evans said.
"We got a description of him and we know what phone he used," Evans said. The sheriff said the suspect's story may not have been the truth and they already had leads on the suspect by 10 a.m.
"It's probably someone who had court this morning," Evans said.
Both courthouses and the Courthouse Annex were evacuated because the suspect did not say which court he was referring to, Evans said.
Head of security at the Calvert County District Court, C. Bucky Dowell said a sheriff's office deputy and a Maryland State Police trooper did a walk-through of the building with Dowell, ensuring all the employees were evacuated out of their offices and to the state police barrack. All the offices were open at the time they were notified of the threat, and Dowell estimates the number evacuated was "probably in the neighborhood of 200."
"We reopened the building at 10 of [10 a.m.]" he said. The staff was brought into the building first and then the court opened to customers, he added.
"It went very well." By 10:30 a.m. the court was back in service to the public and "running the docket," Dowell said.
The county services plaza was also evacuated, said Terry Shannon, acting county administrator.
"They were being cautious," she said.
The sheriff's office called St. Mary's, Charles, Prince George's and Anne Arundel county bomb squads to assist with searching for a bomb, Evans said. They used bomb-sniffing trained dogs from other counties and the sheriff's office's regularly-trained canines to help with the search, he said. After searching for about an hour and a half, no explosive device was found.
"It's been a while, but it's happened before," Evans said of bomb threats at the courthouse.
"It's been over a year, so that's good," he added.
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