A significant deployment of security assets including the Army, bomb disposal teams, and police took place in Southern Manchester Thursday morning, responding to reports of a suspicious package.
A police perimeter was established in Hulme, a borough of Manchester directly south of the city centre Thursday morning. Streets around a local school were closed while police carried out searches, before declaring the alert a false alarm and the area safe.
Speaking Thursday afternoon, Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said of the search: “You will be aware that officers are currently responding to an incident in Hulme, in Manchester. A suspicious package has now been deemed safe and the cordon has been removed. At this stage, the incident is not necessarily linked to the wider investigation, but I hope people understand that we will always take reports such as this seriously”.
The Hulme alert comes as elements of the British army are deployed in support of police across the country, most visibly in London where armed troops have been deployed to key sites like the Houses of Parliament, and embassies to free-up police firearms officers for other duties.
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