The Beverly Hills Police Department (BHPD) received a bomb threat on April 19, leading to a multi-hour search focused around BHPD headquarters and the closure of streets in front of the department and City Hall. While the threat did not materialize after a multi-hour search, BHPD has opened an investigation into the call that set off alarms.
“We received a call into our dispatch center around 8 p.m.,” said BHPD spokesperson Acting Captain Max Subin. “We used our K9 units to sweep the area to locate any suspicious device(s).”
Police did not locate any such items. Subin promised that police operations were not impacted by the incident, though police personnel and staff evacuated BHPD headquarters for the duration of the scare. Police sounded the all-clear around midnight.
The city was already on high alert in the lead up to the verdict in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. After the city experienced looting and vandalism following the protests over George Floyd’s death, officials promised to take every precaution in the case of additional unrest.
Although the unrest did not materialize after a jury returned a guilty verdict, the city placed concrete K-rails in strategic locations for crowd control and went on full alert throughout the residential and business district. Some of the additional safety measures came into play on April 19 when Beverly Hills received assistance from the Santa Monica Police Department and Culver City Police Department.
As of press time, Subin said that BHPD was conducting an investigation into the incident.
