Whitehorse Daily Star

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Photo by Christopher Reynolds

DRAMA DOWNTOWN – Fire chief Kevin Lyslo (left) looks down one of the streets blocked off Wednesday afternoon during the building evacuations.

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Photo by Christopher Reynolds

Some of the occupants of the emptied buildings await further developments on Third Avenue.

Suspicious briefcase sees major buildings emptied

RCMP officers removed hundreds of public employees and office workers from several downtown buildings Wednesday afternoon after a “suspicious package” — a briefcase — was reported at the Elijah Smith Building.

By Whitehorse Star on February 26, 2015

RCMP officers removed hundreds of public employees and office workers from several downtown buildings Wednesday afternoon after a “suspicious package” — a briefcase — was reported at the Elijah Smith Building.

Police ordered evacuations at the Elijah Smith, T.C. Richards and Lynn buildings and blocked off the area shortly before 3 p.m.

Police dispatched the explosive disposal unit and sent bomb-sniffing dogs through the front doors after 3 p.m.

Officers taped off Main and Steele streets between Third and Fourth avenues “for security and public safety reasons,” Whitehorse RCMP spokesman Cpl. Jeff Myke said in a release.

The strip of Third Avenue parallel to Elijah Smith was also off limits.

RCMP cruisers, fire trucks and bylaw officers barricaded all four corners surrounding Elijah Smith – the federal headquarters in Whitehorse and home to 350 government employees.

Eight firefighters were on hand for crowd control and “in case there was an actual event,” said fire chief Kevin Lyslo, who directed his crews from Fourth and Steele as the drama unfolded.

“The package was removed without incident, allowing employees to return to the building and traffic (to) resume as usual,” the RCMP release stated.

Most federal and territorial employees at the two buildings had already left the area.

“You’re probably not going to get back in today,” Whitehorse Fire Department Capt. Jason Wolsky told bystanders at around 3:30 p.m., about half an hour before the situation was defused.

Yukon government employee Tammi Sikorski said the east side of Elijah Smith was evacuated about 10 to 20 minutes before the rest of the building.

“I said, ‘that doesn’t work for me.’ I was a little concerned that they were only evacuating the east side of the building,” Sikorski said.

Eventually an announcement over the P.A. system directed occupants outside, but Sikorski was already on her way.

“I did get concerned when they said to go to the other side of the street,” she added.

RCMP would not comment on what was in the “suspicious package.”

Myke told the Star the briefcase’s “contents were nothing of any concern.

“Police must respond to these situations with the highest risk assessment until the package is proven to be non-threatening,” he added.

Comments (10)

Up 0 Down 0

Frequet Flyer on Mar 4, 2015 at 9:25 pm

Maybe it was on the terror watch list.
It probably was foreign so could not be trusted or did not speak English.
I know, it didn't comply with the get down on the floor instruction.

Up 4 Down 0

drama queen on Mar 4, 2015 at 9:42 am

Isn't a briefcase in an office building like a gym bag in a fitness center? Can you imagine evacuating a gym for the day because someone left their gym bag at the front desk?

What a joke.

Up 0 Down 4

Josey Wales on Mar 4, 2015 at 8:54 am

Man there are some great comments thus far.
Some must of thought of this...OK so we were assured no BOOM, got it.
Buuuut what of the other contents of said case?
Some "mega important" 'crat leave serious personal data of ours?
If it was legit the identity of the owner/carrier of paper/geek sticks etc. should not be too too hard to sleuth?
Do you think if it were stuffed full of our personal info via our overlords
"requirements" of its subjects...that would ever be public info?

I think someone wanted to go ice fishing.

Up 51 Down 4

Jonathan Colby on Feb 27, 2015 at 1:44 pm

Am I the only one who's going to ask, "What made the briefcase suspicious?" What aspect of the briefcase's appearance suspicious? Was it because it was abandoned? No joking about the workers' integrity here... I want to know. Because, if a briefcase appeared, and no one claimed it, that does not make it 'suspicious.' It means someone likely just left it by accident. It *could* be a bomb, in the same way that it *could* be a collection of shrunken heads, or penguin feathers, or any number of extremely unlikely things. However, Occam's razor lets us be confident that this is likely a forgotten article with no sinister contents whatsoever.

I want to know: why was this package deemed suspicious? If it was fear that led to that determination, let me be the first to belittle the intelligence of whoever made that call. Fear is not stupid, but the stupid are often fearful...

Up 33 Down 7

Werner Rhein on Feb 27, 2015 at 11:33 am

Tammi you are so right, either you evacuate a building and an area or not.
You can't just evacuate half way, and direct people to the other side of the street where they would be fully exposed to flying debris.
A briefcase full of the right stuff would blow that building to pieces.
Especially all the glass would be flying.
How many people in the adjacent buildings were watching behind their windows?
But even the chief yahoo Berry is standing there in a street jacket no helmet no nothing. Is this his real super safety concern?
Should he not be in the emergency center organizing where casualties would go, what other resources he would be needing just in case something really would be happening?
Somebody should do an investigation of the performance of our emergency responders.

Up 14 Down 1

YTer on Feb 27, 2015 at 11:27 am

Well, evidently Yukoners think there must be people working in there, because when the Harper gov shut down local revenue Canada offices across the country, many, many Yukoners raised holy hell about it.

Up 52 Down 3

PrivateSectorWorker on Feb 27, 2015 at 8:32 am

Well, it could have been worse. It could have been a briefcase left at the Advanced Education building , in which case the entire building would have been closed for a week to give all those hardworking bureaucra... er, administrators, time to recover from the trauma.

Up 16 Down 10

GovernmentTimeCard on Feb 26, 2015 at 5:56 pm

I'm willing to bet none of those "workers" remembered to clock-out before they exited the building!

Up 67 Down 16

PublicEmployee on Feb 26, 2015 at 3:22 pm

Thomas - your comment has probably saved a lot of readers thinking of commenting a lot of time. A briefcase in the Elijah Smith building? Evidence of a working professional ? It can't possibly belong to anyone inside. Alien material. Time to evacuate. Defused by 3 pm? OK folks, that's a wrap, end of the 'working' day!

Up 76 Down 27

Thomas Brewer on Feb 26, 2015 at 3:08 pm

Some would say that this briefcase was suspicious as nobody actually works in that building... I wouldn't say that, but indeed some do.

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