March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Bomb scare interrupts Cohen’s Bangor visit

BANGOR — A visit by U.S. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen was interrupted Friday after a bomb threat was called into the high school where Cohen was participating in an aspirations symposium.

The threat was made about 11:13 a.m., prompting Bangor High School officials to evacuate the school. It wasn’t known how many attended the conference, although people were allowed back inside the school about 45 minutes later, according to Bangor police Sgt. Jeff Millard.

Details about the nature of the threat weren’t released as the incident is still under investigation, Millard said.

The daylong symposium, the third of its kind, included a keynote address by Cohen, who graduated from Bangor High School in 1958. The schedule called for attendees to break out into smaller work sessions from 10:25 to 11:50 a.m., when lunch was to be held.

Millard said that the police were called in, but as part of protocol, the searching of the building for anything out of the ordinary was left up to the school to do. The police department’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit, also known as the bomb squad, was not called in, he said.

Bangor school officials could not be reached for comment Friday night. Bangor High has approximately 1,400 students.

In response to a previous bomb scare Nov. 24, school officials had high school students make up the lost academic time by attending classes on a Saturday in mid-December.

Bangor has been one of several communities dealing with hoax bomb threats and investigations have resulted in several


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