A Bit Behind?

Anyone venturing downtown yesterday afternoon would have been hard pressed to miss the multi-block area shut-down around Farragut North. Fire apparatus of all shapes and sizes mixed with a heavy multi-agency police presence and assorted other officials as hundreds were evacuated from the Mayflower Hotel and environs after a highly suspicious package was found by hotel employees.

Now it’s bad enough that the city’s emergency text alert system didn’t pass along a warning at all–either about the traffic disruptions or the incident itself–but now it appears that the Post missed the full story. Their brief on page B2 has the incident as a “hoax,” with the FBI continuing their investigation into any possible ties to terrorism.

Meanwhile CNN’s America bureau, their special national security team, had pieced together a very different story: It turns out that the “bomb” was really a training device mistakenly left behind by a Secret Service contractor. CNN had the story (latest version here) up by early evening.

Maybe there’s some truth to what Wolf Blitzer repeats daily: “Stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.”

> EARLIER: CNN show fined for not getting the “Security Watch” tag line right.

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