Law enforcement officers in downtown Buffalo and Niagara County spent Thursday afternoon responding to multiple bomb threats. The threats were part of incidents seen across the U.S. and Canada.
Five buildings in downtown Buffalo were evacuated after receiving crudely written bomb threats by email.
“It has come to our attention that this has been occurring nationwide,” said Buffalo Police Captain Jeffrey Rinaldo on Thursday afternoon. Rinaldo said the threats were centering mostly on hospitals colleges and universities.
In Niagara County, Niagara University and Niagara County Community College were having the same experience. A statement issued by the university said “a number of members of the university community received an email that threatened the college.”
Employees at the buildings in downtown Buffalo spent about an hour outside on what was a relatively warm winter day, while authorities investigated the threats.
Both Niagara County law enforcement and the Buffalo Police quickly came to the same conclusion – the threat was not credible.
Rinaldo said the public had nothing to worry about, short of some traffic disruption by police activity.
“We’re working with the joint terrorism task force, the state police, the county sheriff, the NFTA Police, as well as the FBI,” said Rinaldo.
As of Thursday afternoon, the source of the emails was still under investigation.
