Threat of Explosives Spurs Downtown Closures
Police officers investigate a rental truck downtown driven by a man who said he wanted to talk with President Bush. (Juana Arias - The Washington Post)
By David Fahrenthold and Monte Reel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; 1:09 PM
A man who told police his rental truck was full of explosives snarled downtown traffic, forced the closing of a Metro station and put about 7,000 Agriculture Department workers on the street this morning.
But the threat turned out to be a hoax and traffic that slowed to a crawl in the heart of the morning rush was moving normally by 11 a.m.
The incident began shortly after 8 a.m. when a man driving a Budget Rent A Car box truck stopped the vehicle near the intersection of 12th Street and Independence Avenue SW, Metropolitan Police Commander Thomas E. McGuire said. The man first demanded to see the president and then indicated to police that his truck was filled with explosives. D.C. Fire Deparment spokesman Alan Etter said that a search of the truck found no explosives this morning.
Anthony Stebbins, 36, a custodian at the Department of Agriculture was cleaning outside the building shortly before 8:30 this morning when he saw a man driving the truck get out of the vehicle and stop traffic.
"The guy just got out of the truck and I thought maybe he was a police officer the way he was stopping traffic," Stebbins said.
The man who made the threat was strapped to a stretcher and taken to a hospital for physical and psychological observation, McGuire said. "I understand he was talkative and agitated somewhat" while in custody, he said.
Police closed off a section of Independence Avenue and many surrounding streets and all traffic was stopped on the 14th Street Bridge, causing massive backups downtown and into Northern Virginia. The Smithsonian Metro station was closed for about two hours because of its proximity to the Agriculture buildings. A police helicopter circled low overhead while some 7,000 workers from three Agriculture Department buildings milled about.
Robert Molleur, who works for the USDA, said that about 8:45 a.m., security officials told everyone on the Independence Avenue side of the building to evacuate. Later the entire building was evacuated. "We practice that all the time, so it went really well," Molleur said.
