Downtown Barnesville Evacuated
Provided By: The Associated Press
Last Modified: 9/20/2002 12:12:10 PM
Authorities evacuated the downtown square in Barnesville Friday and kept students under guard at nearby schools after finding several suspicious packages shaped like pipes.
John Bankhead, spokesman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said the suspicious packages were reported Friday morning and that GBI and state homeland security officers are on the scene.
Five bomb technicians have been sent from the GBI offices in Greenville and Atlanta. It remains too early to determine the exact nature of the situation, Bankhead said.
Barnesville police reported finding seven or eight suspicious items outside of several downtown business. GBI agents have since detonated the items and determined them to be a hoax.
Authorities said six more locations in downtown Barnesville still needed to be checked.
All three schools in Bankhead are currently on lockdown, according to a spokesman for Lamar County Schools. Parents are being allowed to go to the schools to pick up their children.
The Barnesville sheriff is scheduled to debrief the public on the situation at a noon news conference.
The city is located in Lamar County 50 miles south of Atlanta.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Public schools are an easy target, really.
Thank God we homeschool.