‘Suspicious’ package at Atlanta’s federal courthouse deemed a hoax

A “suspicious” package located Friday afternoon at the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in downtown Atlanta was a hoax, investigators said.

But by then, firefighters and officers had already been called to the scene, closing a busy road and temporarily creating a large law enforcement presence.

The material inside the package was a crushed-up, over-the-counter pill, Bart Stevens, chief deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The “threat” was quickly resolved, he said.

“We are investigating,” Stevens said. “With that said, the sender is a known, frequent, threatening package sender who has done this multiple times in the past.”

The area was quickly reopened, investigators said.