Trump Tower was partially evacuated in a potential bomb scare on Tuesday afternoon.
The New York Police Department Bomb Squad responded to the scene “out of an abundance of caution,” NYPD spokesperson J. Peter Donald wrote on Twitter just after 5 p.m. ET.
The scene was later deemed safe when authorities found that the suspicious package was just an unattended bag of toys and posed no threat. “All clear at Trump Tower following the earlier suspicious package in the lobby,” Donald wrote in an update.
A short video of the evacuation was shared on Twitter, and shows guests running out of the hotel lobby as police shout “Out! Out!”
https://twitter.com/cielo_celest/status/813860477751218176
According to the Washington Post, the lobby of Trump Tower is accessible to the public from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. under the terms of an agreement with the city, making securing the building a headache for both NYPD and the Secret Service. Both agencies responded to Tuesday’s scare.
Trump Tower, a 58-floor skyscraper in midtown Manhattan, serves as the residence of President-elect Donald Trump, as well as the offices for both his business and transition teams as Trump prepares for his inauguration on Jan. 20.
Trump was not in Trump Tower at the time of the evacuation. The president-elect has been spending the holidays at his Palm Beach, Florida, resort called Mar-a-Lago.