Bomb scare shuts down Victoria Street
UPDATED: As of 6 p.m., Victoria Street had been re-opened.
Police did locate explosives inside the building, but deemed them not to be suspicious.
Kamloops RCMP Staff Sgt. Grant Learned described them as "commercial-grade" explosives.
They will be destroyed by police, and the investigation remains ongoing to determine how they ended up inside the building.
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Kamloops Mounties aren't saying much about a "suspicious package" found inside a Victoria Street business this afternoon (March 19) — for which a Lower Mainland RCMP bomb squad has been flown into the Tournament Capital.
The explosives investigators are presently inside the building, located at 444 Victoria St.
The 400-block of Victoria Street is closed to traffic.
Kamloops RCMP Staff Sgt. Grant Learned said the initial call came in at about 2 p.m., when an employee of a business in the building apparently found something suspicious.
"We don't know exactly what it is," Learned said.
"But, there are protocols that are followed."
Learned also refused to comment on the package itself.
"The circumstances of what caused the concern is not something we're going to discuss directly," he said.
"The consultations were done with the [RCMP] people in Vancouver . . . and they're the ones that gave us directions on how to secure the area."
Learned said the building was evacuated shortly after the call came in, but Victoria Street traffic wasn't halted until closer to 5 p.m.
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