Update, 6 p.m. Officers investigated and determined there was nothing dangerous about the package. The roadway has been reopened to traffic, BPD said.
Original story, 5:01 p.m. Police are on the scene in North Berkeley to investigate a suspicious package Friday evening, and have closed The Alameda between Hopkins Street and Monterey Avenue at this time.
Berkeley Police Lt. Joe Okies said police are trying to determine the contents of the package as they decide how to proceed. Members of BPD’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal team have also responded.
The call about the package initially came in to BPD at about 12:30 p.m. Reports about the road closure began reaching Berkeleyside shortly before 5 p.m.
Okies said the road closure is “standard procedure” for this sort of investigation.
“Area around the north berkeley library blocked off to traffic on all sides with police and fire truck activity. Hard to tell what was going on,” wrote one resident on Twitter just before 5 p.m. Wrote another, “street closures around north branch library due to suspicious package. Bomb squad, fire, police present.”
One local resident told Berkeleyside by email that she had seen the activity at about 4:30 p.m.: “The Alameda [is] closed for one block, and the narrow road behind the library, but not Hopkins next to the library.”
She said “a police van was pulling up and meter maid-type vehicles were around with the yellow tape,” but activity at the North Berkeley branch of the library, at 1170 The Alameda, did not seem impacted.
Berkeleyside will update this story if more information becomes available.
