Firefighters respond to a suspicious package at Medicine Hat Provincial Courthouse Thursday afternoon - Photo by Jessie Weisner

By Hayley Ferguson/Charles Lefebvre

Suspicious Package

Police respond to suspicious package at court house

Sep 19, 2019 | 2:20 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — A suspicious package caused the evacuation of Medicine Hat Provincial Court for three hours Thursday afternoon.

According to Inspector Tim McGough with the Medicine Hat Police Service, police received the call at 11:25 this morning.

“Our first responders responded there, along with the Medicine Hat Fire Service’s hazardous materials team, and it was isolated to courtroom number nine,” he said.

The building was evacuated, and crews worked to set up a perimeter to deal with the package.

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“Every time we get a call like this, we do a continual assessment,” said McGough. “Personal safety, the safety of our community citizens and the police officers and firefighters responding is of a paramount importance and is always number one.”

Details about the suspicious package have not been released by police, due to the ongoing investigation.

“The necessary precautions were taken at scene,” said McGough. “It was seized as an exhibit, and will now be processed and analyzed to see where the investigation will take us from here.”

Firefighters clean up the scene after responding to a suspicious package call at the Medicine Hat Provincial Courthouse Thursday afternoon (photo by Charles Lefebvre)

By 2:20 p.m., the scene was cleared. McGough says there is no further risk to the public.

“We’ve retrieved all the evidence that we need as far as camera, surveillance camera video, and any physical exhibits that we need from the scene, that has all been taken care of,” he said. “It just needs to be processed and chronologically put into order to we can basically analyze it and see if there is anything further we need to do to further the investigation.”

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact police at 403 529-8481.