Liberty Island Evacuated After Discovery Of Suspicious Package

NBC News reports “the Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island were both being evacuated Friday afternoon after parks police received a report of a suspicious package.”

The package was discovered near a visitors’ locker area by police dogs. The NYPD bomb squad was called in, and a security sweep of the island performed, while tourists were taken off the island by ferry as a precaution.

Gothamist collected Twitter traffic from tourists on the island, one of whom reported seeing a SWAT team. Another uploaded video of the evacuation:

There are reports on social media that Ellis Island has been evacuated as well.

Shawn Nottingham of CNN Tweeted that the situation involved more than just the random discovery of a suspicious package – a bomb  threat was telephoned into the Statue of Liberty office around noon, and mentioned a package inside a locker, which appears to be just what the police dogs found.