A “suspicious” package delivered to a Bristol Township district court Wednesday morning prompted a 2½-hour evacuation and a Philadelphia bomb squad visit, but it contained only antique books, according to Bristol Township police.
The contents were revealed after the bomb squad took an X-ray of the Priority Mail flat rate box delivered to District Judge Joanne Kline’s court on Bath Road around 11 a.m.
The U.S. Postal service delivered the package with the court’s regular mail, but the return address label struck the court staff as strange, according to Bristol Township Acting Police Chief John Godzieba. The employees took the package outside and called police and the county court system.
The package was addressed to Kline at the Bath Road courthouse, but its return address label was also in Kline’s name and the court address, according to Kline, which struck employees as “extremely suspicious.”
The destination address also contained references to “The Pony Express” and Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, where one of the state’s prisons is located, the judge said.
Court employees, police officers, attorneys and others were forced to wait across the street at the Newportville Fire Company until police determined the courthouse was safe. Employees were allowed back inside around 1:30 p.m. and scheduled court hearings and business resumed at 2 p.m.
“We are responsible for the safety of the people who are in our building and we wanted to err on the side of caution,” Kline said.
After determining the contents of the package were safe, the bomb squad removed the package, Bristol Township Lt. Guy Sava said.
“I don’t recall the (book) titles but they were non-descript,” Sava added.
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