JACKSON, Miss (AP) — Officials evacuated government buildings in Mississippi and several other states following bomb threats Thursday morning, briefly disrupting government affairs in some places for the second day in a row.
Police did not immediately find explosives after evacuating the Mississippi Capitol and courthouses in Arkansas and Montana, and have since reopened the buildings to the public.
The latest round of evacuations comes after an emailed threat to officials in several states prompted lockdowns at multiple state capitols Wednesday. The threats also follow a spate of false reports of shootings at the homes of public officials in recent days.
In Jackson, Miss., officials said the state Supreme Court, which is across the street from the Mississippi Capitol Building, received a bomb threat. Bomb-sniffing dogs circled the building before officials cleared the area. Officials also cleared the Hinds County Circuit Court and Hinds County Chancery Court Buildings following threats, Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones announced.
The FBI said it was aware of “numerous hoax incidents” Thursday.
“The FBI takes hoax threats very seriously because it puts innocent people at risk,” Marshay Lawson, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Jackson Division, said in a statement. “While we have no information to indicate a specific and credible threat, we will continue to work with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners.”
Arkansas officials evacuated the Pulaski County Courthouse in downtown Little Rock Thursday morning after it received a bomb threat.
The threat was announced shortly after a hearing began in a lawsuit between the state Board of Corrections and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The governor and the board have been in an increasingly heated dispute over who runs the state prison system.
Police gave the all-clear after searching the building and allowed people back inside around 11:15 a.m. central.
Officials evacuated the Cascade County courthouse in Great Falls, Mont., Thursday morning after the county received a bomb threat and reopened it after law enforcement officials determined the threat wasn’t credible.
In northwestern Montana, officials also evacuated the Mineral County Justice Court after the county received a bomb threat via email, Sheriff Ryan Funke said in a statement. Law enforcement officers searched the courtrooms in Superior, a town of fewer than 900 people near the Idaho border. Officials spoke with federal and state agencies and determined the incident was not a threat to the public or court employees, Funke said in a statement.
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Associated Press writers Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas and Amy Beth Hanson in Helena, Montana, contributed to this report.
