Terminal 2 at Los Angeles International Airport was back to normal on a busy summer weekend Saturday after a bomb threat forced authorities to evacuate part of the building and close off a roadway.
The man who made the threat was immediately arrested and no bomb was found. No information about the suspect, including his identity, was disclosed. There was no word about a possible motive or the man’s background.
Amid international tension over terrorism and on the same day a gunman killed at least nine people in a Munich shopping mall in Germany, police took no chances and the lower arrival level of Terminal 2 was evacuated Friday afternoon. That area was reopened after about an hour.
Traffic in the central terminal area, already busy due to construction and the time of day, was even more difficult as lower level traffic on the arrivals level entering the airport was rerouted to the departures, or upper level.
“He made a verbal bomb threat statement,” Airport Police Officer Alicia Hernandez said of the suspect.
The incident began about 2:15 p.m., just as the airport was getting close to one of its busiest times of the week.
A Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad was called in and determined there was no danger. The all-clear was given about 3:15 p.m.
The arrested man was to be booked on suspicion of making a false bomb threat, Hernandez said.
–City News Service