SF suspicious package rendered safe
SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - A suspicious device left at a San Francisco bus stop downtown had the public and police on edge during this morning's rush hour commute. Just hours later, another similar device popped up under a freeway in Vacaville.
Luckily both devices turned out to be harmless rice cookers.
The first suspicious device was reported around 7:30 this morning at the corner of South Van Ness and Mission streets in front of a Goodwill thrift store where traffic was snarled for nearly three hours.
At 9:20 a.m., SFPD's bomb squad sent in its robot to lift the top off of the suspicious device and discovered nothing inside the rice cooker.
"For like an hour we couldn't get out from the building for precautionary measures, "said Mario Santacruz, who was walking to work this morning nearby.
"We shut down vehicle traffic we also shut down pedestrian traffic anyone who was working or living in the immediate area of this package was evacuated from the area," said Sgt. Michael Andraychak.
Just a few hours later, in Vacaville, another suspicious device which also turned out to be a rice cooker was found underneath i-80 near Mason Street.
SFPD says even though it was a false alarm, inspectors are investigating.
"We'll be looking into whether or not this was done in careless way, someone simply left something that would cause this kind of panic or whether or not it was done with some other intention," said Commander Mikail Ali, DeputyChief of the Special Operations Bureau.
"I'd rather be safe than , I don't want it to happen in San Francisco what happened in New York," said Santacruz.
Saturday in New York's Chelsea district, a pressure-cooker explosive injured more than 30 people. Yesterday, a pressure cooker popped up in the Bronx, which also turned out to be a false alarm.
"Since there's bomb threats going off everywhere, people are going to pay attention!" said LaToya Patterson, who works nearby.
"We take all [bomb threats]seriously, we do not have the ability to make a mistake," said Officer Dino Zografos, who works as a bomb technician for the San Francisco Police Department. "If we make a mistake everybody but us will know it as bomb technicians. You could tell it's a rice cooker from the outside but you don't know what's inside."
Zografos says the container, whether it's a rice cooker, backpack or suitcase can be just a disguise for a bomb and even though everyone is on edge right now because of the New York explosion, every single threat has always been taken seriously.
SFPD is now reviewing surveillance video and interviewing witnesses regarding this morning's incident. Inspectors are looking into the possibility that someone dropping off donation items left the rice cooker behind.