The metal box detonated by police outside the Simon Wiesenthal Center this week was not an explosive device, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The metal box was discovered by private security guards shortly after noon on Wednesday, resting on the pedestal of a sculpture near the entrance to the Wiesenthal Center. At about the same time, police received an anonymous phone call that a bomb would explode at the center.
Police, the FBI and other law-enforcement personnel responded immediately, cordoning off a stretch of Pico Boulevard and ordering the evacuation of several hundred people working at the center or visiting the adjoining Museum of Tolerance, according to Gerald Margolis, director of the center and museum. At about the same time, the University of Judaism received a bomb threat, prompting the evacuation of about 200 people. Two suspicious objects were found on the premises, but they turned out to be nothing serious.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.