Calgary police closed down two roads in the city’s southwest on Monday as they investigated a suspicious object found on the corner of a commercial building close to Chinook Centre.
Police were alerted to the object, found in the 5900 block of 1A Street S.W., at about 7:50 a.m.
The area was evacuated including multiple businesses within two to three buildings.
Then, just before 8:30 a.m., police shut down 1A Street S.W. between 58 Avenue S.W. and 60 Avenue S.W. and 59 Avenue S.W. between 3 Street S.W. and 1A Street S.W.
“It appeared to be a pipe bomb with lots of tape and made out of metal, what we thought was metal,” Acting Duty Insp. Glenn Laird told Global News Monday afternoon. “Once they got to the scene, the bomb techs were able to do a disruption on this suspicious package, this device, and were able to determine that it wasn’t an IED (improved explosive device)… but it looked like one.
“So it was either a hoax or a makeshift weapon that was dumped by someone before we found it.”
– With files from Erika Tucker