State bomb squad blows up suspicious package at bank
WOONSOCKET – Police cordoned off Cumberland Street for roughly three hours yesterday after the discovery of a suspicious, box-like object on the sidewalk in front of Citizens Bank they feared might be an explosive device.
The object – believed to be a small travel case or home safe – appeared to be empty after being x-rayed by members of the Rhode Island State Bomb Squad, but they ended up detonating it as a precaution, according to Police Chief Thomas F. Oates III.
“Suspicious packages are, in plain English, a problem for all police and fire departments because they have to be treated as if they’re dangerous to protect officers and firefighters and members of the community until we
can verify that they’re not dangerous,” said Oates. “There are protocols for handling them and we follow them.”
The police stretched a ribbon of yellow crime scene tape across Cumberland Street in front of St. Ann’s Arts and Cultural Center a few minutes after dispatch received a call about the box at 11:47 a.m., according to Oates. Before long a battery of public safety vehicles established a combination blockade-command center just behind the tape, while the Woonsocket Fire Department responded with crews and several pieces of apparatus on standby in the nearby parking lot of Walgreen’s Pharmacy. Meanwhile, members of the Woonsocket Police Department waved a never-ending stream of vehicles past the traffic lights at the busy intersection of Clinton Street, about 30 feet from the mysterious container.
The bomb squad arrived with a tactical vehicle and personnel clad in protective gear that looked something like a cross between green military fatigues and a space suit. But the star of the show may have been a robot used by the squad to remotely inspect and photograph the gray box, located on a grassy patch of sidewalk in front of Citizens Bank and Pacific Asian Cuisine.
Onlookers clogged the parking lot of Walgreen’s Pharmacy as the spectacle unfolded.
“There were a lot of people who stopped by and stayed in the lot for the vantage point,” said Oates. “People got to see the robot.”
Employees of the Citizens Bank, Pacific Asian Cuisine and Plaza Center – the mir- ror-facade office tower on the opposite side of Cumberland Street – were not evacuated. But workers inside those buildings were instructed to stay in portions of the workplace as far away from the street as possible until the threat was neutralized, according to Oates.
First responders and technicians from the RI State Bomb Squad – an arm of the State Fire Marshals Office – blew up the box shortly before 2:46 p.m., at which point busy Cumberland Street was reopened to traffic.