Police were called to the Time Warner Center in New York on Wednesday to investigate a suspicious package that forced employees from CNN and other companies to evacuate for several hours.
CNN temporarily cut a live broadcast out of its New York City studios, which are housed in the building, after an alarm went off amid the evacuation.
Anchors Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto later continued to broadcast from the street on their cell phones after being evacuated from the studio.
CNN President Jeff Zucker said in a note to employees in New York that the building was evacuated “out of an abundance of caution,” saying a suspicious package had been received in the mailroom.{mosads}
The network later reported that the suspicious package mailed to its offices had been addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan, who is a contributor to MSNBC.
The building was reopened after the New York Police Department finished a security sweep, Zucker announced in a memo sent around 3:30 p.m.
Zucker had said in an earlier memo that the network was also “checking all bureaus around the world, out of a complete abundance of caution.”
The suspicious device was removed from the Time Warner building around noon, with footage shared on social media showing a bomb squad driving away from the building.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo addressed the situation in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, calling it an act of terrorism.
“Terrorism only works if you let it work. What they are trying to do is scare us and destabilize us and we will not let that happen…We will not let these terrorist thugs to change the way we live our lives. They fail unless we allow them to win, and we will not allow them to win,” Cuomo said.
An alarm in the building went off Wednesday while Harlow and Sciutto were anchoring “CNN Newsroom,” forcing them to cut an interview short that was focused on suspicious packages sent to the home of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in New York and one package intercepted by the Secret Service that was intended to reach former President Obama in Washington, D.C.
CNN switched to its D.C. studio to resume its broadcast Wednesday morning.
Jessica Schneider, who serves as a CNN justice correspondent, reported shortly after the evacuation that the device “was constructed with a pipe and wires,” citing an NYPD source.
“Following developments on evacuation of CNN in NYC, and Time Warner Center. Law enforcement telling me and @ShimonPro: The device was constructed with a pipe and wires, according to an NYPD source,” Schneider wrote on Twitter. “Law enforcement authorities treating device as real explosive.”
Updated: 3:38 p.m.