Bomb Threat Forces Evacuation of DC TEA Party Planners

September 11, 2009 4:50 PM
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On the eve of what organizers call a 'Big Ol' TEA Party', the Washington, D.C., offices of FreedomWorks were evacuated by DC Metro police on Friday afternoon after the conservative organization reported to authorities at 3:42 pm ET that it had received a bomb threat.

At 4:48 pm ET, the organization put out a Twitter message saying that it turned out to be a false alarm but the organization is not happy about the disruption.

My colleague, ABC News' Teddy Davis has the story:

Tens of thousands of anti-big government activists are expected in Washington on Saturday as part of a "March on Washington" being organized by FreedomWorks, a conservative group headed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas.

A FreedomWorks staffer told ABC News that the organization's offices at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue were evacuated on Friday afternoon by DC Metro Police because of a bomb scare.

DC Metro police has confirmed to ABC News' Jason Ryan that the DC Metro police had, indeed, evacuated the organization's offices after being told by the organization that it had received a bomb threat.

The threat came when a man called the FreedomWorks main line and told the organization's female receptionist: "I put a bomb in your building, bitch."

The FreedomWorks staffer who spoke with ABC News said that the organization has received multiple threats but that for some reason, the DC Metro police thought that this one was credible enough to evacuate the building.

The FreedomWorks staffer did not fear for his safety but worried that it was an effort to disrupt the organization's ability to round up activists in advance of tomorrow's "March on Washington" which is expected to bring tens of thousands of activists to the nation's capital.

The FreedomWorks staffers says that 50 volunteers were forced to leave the office where they were making calls encouraging people to come to tomorrow's event.

September 11, 2009 in Washington

http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/09 ... nners.html