No biological toxins were detected in the white powder received in a letter sent to the Baltimore City Circuit Court, the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a post on X Tuesday morning.
The Maryland Department of Health conducted the testing of the substance, and advised that the room in the courthouse where the envelope was found could be reopened once decontaminated.
The sheriff’s office said the decontamination of the room was beginning Tuesday morning.
The second floor of the Circuit Court building at 111 N. Calvert St. was locked down Monday afternoon after the suspicious white powder was received in a letter opened by a courthouse employee. The letter was addressed from an inmate at a state correctional facility. The sheriff advised the public to avoid that block of North Calvert Street as the fire department also responded to the scene.
The Baltimore Police Department; U.S. Postal Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the FBI; the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center; and the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services joined in the investigation, as three people that were potentially exposed to the powder were taken to area hospitals as a precaution. All were released around midnight.
The incident represented “no hazard” to the other floors of the courthouse, the sheriff’s office said.
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