Unknown Substance, Suspicious Package Reported at Four Police Departments

Bay City News Service

Four local police departments received suspicious deliveries Friday.

Mid-afternoon Berkeley police partially evacuated their headquarters after a suspicious package was reported there.

That came not long after an unknown substance was reported in the San Leandro Police Department's building, authorities said.

A hazardous materials team and firefighters arrived at the San Leandro police station at 901 E. 14th St. around 1:45 p.m., Alameda County fire spokeswoman Aisha Knowles said.

In Berkeley, a suspicious package was then reported in the building at 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way at 2:15 p.m., Berkeley police said.

 Knowles did not know if the San Leandro and Berkeley incidents were connected to a report this morning of a powdery substance delivered to the Hayward Police Department.

Tests this afternoon revealed the substance in Hayward was not anthrax, according to Hayward fire officials.

Then, at 3:05 pm, the Union City Police Department became the fourth local office to report the delivery of a mysterious substance.

Alameda County's hazardous materials team responded to the Union City Police Department in the 34000 block of Niles-Alvarado Road, county fire spokeswoman Knowles said.

The police departments are now working together to see if the incidents are related.

The incident in San Leandro does seem like .

According to authorities, at approximately 1:30 pm, a San Leandro Police Department employee was going through the departmental mail.  She opened a letter addressed to the police department and discovered an unknown white powder inside the envelope.   

San Leandro Police Department staff members immediately went into their Hazardous  Materials plan. But the material in the envelope was determined to be baking flour.

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