Police Evacuate City Hall, Close Terry Schrunk Plaza

At 12:57 p.m. Monday, several hours after evacuating Portland City Hall and closing down adjacent streets and a park, the Portland Police Bureau announced a suspicious package found at City Hall does not pose a risk to the public and that team members were working on clearing the scene so city staff could resume operations.

This morning at 9:36 a.m. police responded to a report of a suspicious package and evacuated City Hall, according to information released by police Monday. Officers closed the building and closed streets in the immediate vicinity and were “assessing the package to determine whether or not a risk to the public exists,” according to the bureau’s release.

Later this morning PPB announced that Terry Schrunk Plaza, a federally controlled park immediately across the street from City Hall, had also been evacuated while the bureau’s explosive disposal unit investigates.

This marks the second closure of City Hall this month due to threats. On July 2 city officials received a bomb threat and evacuated the building for about an hour. At that time the mayor’s chief of staff said the city had been receiving thousands of angry emails and phone calls a day since the mayor was criticized for his handling of a protest the previous weekend.