Friday incident saw RCMP block off portion of downtown again owing to threats

It was a deja vu moment for many Prince Rupert residents on Friday morning, as the RCMP stopped access to a one block stretch of the downtown area.

Shortly after 10 AM, Northern Savings Credit Union received a threatening phone call, which resulted in the evacuation of the building and a subsequent search of the immediate area. In order to control the situation, the RCMP had set up a perimeter stopping traffic along 3rd Avenue West from McBride to Second Street.

After approximately an hour later, the building was deemed clear and access to both the Credit Union and streets surrounding it was once again permitted.

The CBC's Daybreak North hosts were the first to reveal details of the incident, which took place less than a block from their 3rd Avenue studios. Producer George Baker provided a number of updates through his twitter feed as events unfolded.

More on Friday's situation can be found below:

CFNR-- Threat prompts evacuation in Prince Rupert
Northern View-- Third Avenue reopened after Northern Savings cleared of threat

It was the second such incident in the last ten days, on November 26th a similar situation evolved at the Canada Safeway store, owing the larger area and more accessible parts of that store,  an RCMP bomb dog was made available for the search at that time.

As we outlined on the 26th, that incident resulted in a more extensive closure of the downtown area which lasted into Thursday morning.

Last week Daybreak North provided this background piece to the nature of the bomb sniffing dog service that is available for Northern British Columbia.

The investigation into both incidents is ongoing and anyone with information can contact the Prince Rupert RCMP at 250-627-0700 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477)

To review past items of note from our Northwest Emergency Services files see our archive page here.