Updated at 4:55 p.m. Oct. 18:
A suspicious seeming package found by employees Thursday at the front door of a Bank of America in Temecula prompted an investigation.
The branch in the 27000 block of Ynez Road was closed until the Riverside County Sheriff's Hazardous Device Team arrived to examine the package, Temecula police Sgt. Dean Spivacke said in a news release.
It was determined the package contained no explosives, the sergeant said.
"Based on the appearance and location of the package, it was treated as a possible explosive device," Spivacke said. "For the safety of the public, the bank was evacuated, the parking lot of the bank was cleared and traffic was closed on Ynez Road."
The roadway was reopened at about 11:45 a.m., the sergeant said.
An investigation into the package was continuing, he said.
A Los Angeles-based spokeswoman for the bank sent an email to Patch regarding the incident.
"Unfortunately because it is still an active investigation, we defer all inquiries to the sheriff's dept [sic] to decide what information to disclose," Colleen Haggerty wrote in the email.
As customers waited for the bank to reopen and most employees sent out had not yet returned, someone still inside the bank ordered Pizza Hut; the deliveryman was allowed to enter but told Patch the bank was on lockdown.
I sure would like to see what the package looks like and what it ends up having in it and if a bomb scare or something was called in to someone to make the package suspcious. The police had Margarita stopped in both directions sending traffic around the blocks, the freeway ramps re-routed, every other street re-routed. We were not too bad on Margarita going south and a nice officer directed us on the route to get around. Not mentioning the situation. We just thought the bank had been robbed again, but thought must be some other scenerio with the robbery, like he was still in there or something with the way the entire area was shut down around it. The freeway folks probably had it the worse and now it makes sense why so much area was being re-routed. I had my camera again and forgot to take pictures of all the nice looking police men :) But all joking aside I sure hope it was a big box and really highly suspicious to cause so many officers and citizens to be impacted by it. That is costing alot of Highway Patrol, Sheriff and Temecula PD hours besides standing out there in that hot sun in full uniform and gear.
thanks, I needed a laugh. who was that masked Pizza Driver, still laughing, dented compact, hahaaa Chuck
BUT seriously, law enforcement had it well covered if it was a bomb and had a 3 or 4 block radius to its explosion. There was alot of them out there covering the perimeter.
Paranoia did not effect the IRAQI's or the Afghans, when a large foreign military force (the US military) attacked their soil. I suggest we rename "Land of the Free".... the " Land of the Paranoia"