Package found at EBay was not a bomb

Article Launched: 11/14/2007 11:45:26 AM PST

A suspicious package reported at eBay's Hamilton Avenue offices this morning was not an explosive device, San Jose police Sgt. Nick Muyo said.

About 230 employees evacuated a building near the intersection of Hamilton and Bascom avenues at around 9 a.m. after someone found a suspicious package in the one of the eBay buildings there.

The bomb squad was called in and by 12:30 p.m. officers determined the package was not a bomb, Muyo said. According to Muyo, technicians "disrupted" the package.

Workers at the office found the package at around 8:55 a.m., Muyo said. He wouldn't say where in the building the package was found and declined to describe it.

EBay officials evacuated a single floor of the building. At around 9:24 a.m. San Jose police were called in, officer Jermaine Thomas said. It was around that time that rest of the three story building's employees were evacuated.

The incident comes about a year after someone set off a pipe bomb at an EBay office in North San Jose. No one was injured in that blast on Halloween night.

Because of a lack of leads, Sgt. Nick Muyo said the investigation into that case had been closed.

When crews arrived to the scene of the Halloween blast, they found a 6-by-7-foot window had been shattered near a first-floor exit. The window's frame was bent and a light haze covered the area, firefighters said. No flames, however, were visible, nor was there any other damage.

-- Edited by budnonymous at 16:39, 2007-11-14