This morning on my bus ride in to work, I saw several fire engines, police cars - and two or three news vehicles with antenna masts hoisted high - around the Chicago Police headquarters on South Michigan Avenue. Apparently someone sent an envelope containing a "white powder" to an undisclosed recipient at the facility, forcing a lockdown while hazmat crews scrambled to the scene:

(CBS) CHICAGO A criminal investigation is being launched into a threatening letter sent to Chicago Police Headquarters containing a white powdery substance.

The building was closed this morning as hazmat crews investigated the mysterious substance. No one was allowed in or out of the building at 3510 S. Michigan Ave, and all elevators and stairways were shut down. In a news conference held after the building was reopened, Fire Chief Mike Fox said the substance was “not harmful.”

A police officer opened a threatening letter with the unusual substance on the fifth floor and notified others. The letter had already been processed in the ground floor mailroom and sent upstairs to the same floor where Supt. Phil Cline’s office is located.

Between this and the false bomb warnings on the CTA "L" train recently, I'm starting to feel like I'm back at Salmon River Central School in Ft. Covington, NY, where (in the early 1980's) at least a couple of times a year, some meshuggener kid called in a bomb scare forcing evacuation of the entire school complex. Those were the days.

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