LANSING, Mich. – Operations were resuming Thursday at the Michigan Capitol building after it was targeted by an emailed bomb threat the day before.
The State Capitol Building in Lansing was closed and evacuated on Wednesday, Jan. 3 due to a bomb threat emailed to officials in several states, including Michigan. Federal officials quickly dismissed the threats as a hoax, and no explosives were found.
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In a statement provided Wednesday, the FBI said it was aware of numerous hoax bomb threats at state Capitol buildings throughout the country. The threats were reportedly made in a “mass” email that warned multiple explosives would go off in a few hours.
Michigan State Police said the email was received at about 7:45 a.m. by a general account for the Michigan State Capitol Commission.
The threats did disrupt operations at several statehouse offices and buildings across the country. State buildings in Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi and Montana were evacuated due to the threats. Other states like Wyoming, Oklahoma, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Missouri and Maryland also received threats, but didn’t close their statehouses.
The FBI said it had “no information to indicate a specific and credible threat,” and was working with local and federal law enforcement to investigate.
“The FBI takes hoax threats very seriously because it puts innocent people at risk,” the bureau said.
Michigan’s Capitol building was open again on Thursday, Jan. 4, and was expected to resume normal operations. Local, state and federal law enforcement were continuing to investigate the false threats.
The hoax bomb threats come at a time when multiple lawmakers in the U.S. have been recently targeted by “swatting” calls, which is a prank phone call made to law enforcement in an attempt to facilitate a police response at a certain location. Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows were among those targeted.
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