Suspicious Package Sent to Elections Officials in Minnesota Prompts Evacuation and FBI Investigation

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: US News and World Report/AP

Sept. 27, 2024, at 6:58 p.m.


ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service on Friday were investigating the origin of a suspicious package that was sent to the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office, prompting an hourslong evacuation. Friday's episode in Minnesota was the latest in a string of suspicious package deliveries to elections officials in more than 15 states earlier this month.

The Minnesota Secretary of State's Office in St. Paul was evacuated around noon on Friday, and the building remained under lockdown into the afternoon, said Cassondra Knudson, a spokesperson for the office. The package was addressed to the office with a return address to the “United States Traitor Elimination Army,” the office said in a news release. That matches the sender of a package to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office earlier this month.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said his office would work with law enforcement agencies to hold whoever sent the package accountable. “Threatening election officials is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated," Simon said in a written statement. “Our democracy depends on public servants who must be able to perform their duties free from fear, intimidation, or harassment.

This action is not deterring our work or determination to deliver another election that is free, fair, accurate, and secure.” In Minnesota on Friday and in the earlier episodes in other states, there were no immediate reports of injuries or that any of the packages contained hazardous material.

Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/minnesota/articles/2024-09-27/suspicious-package-sent-to-elections-officials-in-minnesota-prompts-evacuation-and-fbi-investigation

[duncang]

1. City, state, and federal need to think about

Setting up a separate building or room to route all mail through. One that’s isolated from the main building.

They also should make sure to get a spokes person out on every news station when they catch the perpetrator saying what they’re charged with and say what the max sentences could be. Perp walks and mugshots to try to make people understand it’s not okay or a good idea to do it.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. "City, state, and federal need to think about Setting up a separate building or room to route all mail through."

Most of the biggest ones did after the Anthrax mess in 2001, and many still have some kind of procedure for it with special laminar-flow hoods, etc (especially federal), along with protocols for escalating an emergency response. And because over the past 20+ years, people are STILL sending "white powder" through the mail, they have had to be on guard.

The USPS can and have intercepted the bigger packages that are suspicious but it's probably harder with the smaller ones.

But like everything else, strict procedures imposed on smaller facilities and lower level staff, often leads to "security fatigue".

And when they do "catch" someone, it usually does make the "local news" but not always the "national news".

[hadEnuf]

3. How about they call it terrorism and investigate it as such?

The press characterizes stuff like this as normal schoolboy antics.

It's frigging terrorism!