GW Hatchet Blogs - blogs.gwhatchet.com

The Metropolitan Police Department investigated a bomb threat near the perimeter of GW’s campus Friday morning, shutting down K Street between 20th and 22nd Streets for more than an hour.

Officers from MPD’s Second District responded at about 9:45 a.m. after a pedestrian reported seeing a suspicious male place a package in a newspaper box on the corner of 21st and K Streets, MPD Lieutenant Gary Fitzgerald said.

“This is IMF weekend and the IMF building is nearby,” Fitzgerald said. “Those circumstances gave credence to this call.”

Though MPD did not evacuate the office buildings and shops that line K Street, which is infamous for its concentration of powerful Washington lobbying firms, police did halt pedestrian and street traffic while MPD’s explosive ordinance unit investigated the bomb.

“The package didn’t contain anything dangerous and the closures were precautionary. We didn’t want anyone getting hurt but us,” said Fitzgerald, adding that MPD investigates about 700 to 800 serious bomb threats a year.