America
White House briefing room evacuated in bomb scare
Washington, June 10
The US Secret Service
interrupted the daily press conference of White House spokesperson Josh
Earnest in order to temporarily evacuate the briefing room and one of
the gardens of the presidential residence because of a bomb threat
phoned to police that later proved to be a false alarm.
Reporters
covering the press conference were moved to a street separating the
White House from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, after
President Barack Obama's spokesperson told them to leave the briefing
room.
A team of Secret Service agents inspected the room using
dogs trained to detect explosives, and about half an hour after the
evacuation, reporters were able to return to the briefing room and the
press conference resumed.
"Shortly before 2 o'clock today a
telephonic bomb threat concerning the room that we are now all in was
called into the Metropolitan Police Department. The local police
department contacted Secret Service officials who determined that for
the safety of all of us they needed to evacuate the room and then to
sweep it," Efe news agency quoted Earnest as saying after the press
conference resumed.
He said the Secret Service was able to quickly check out the room and conclude they were in no danger.
The
White House spokesperson said the evacuation only affected the press
briefing room and no other part of the presidential residence. It did
not affect President Obama, who was in the building at the time.
The
evacuation took place just hours after a hearing in the US Senate on
the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, was also evacuated
when police in the Capitol received a previous bomb threat.
Earnest said he had no information about whether the two bomb scares could have been related.