The roads have been re-opened again in downtown Marietta after the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office called in the K-9 unit and bomb squad to examine a suspicious package in the court complex.

Officer Chuck McPhilamy of the Marietta Police Department, who emphasized that the matter was handled by the Sheriff’s Office rather than the MPD, got an update from the Sheriff’s Office and sent the following bullet points to the press:

• The county court buildings are all the jurisdiction of CCSO.
• CCSO has not yet named who their new PIO will be (new leadership in any agency almost always brings in a new spokesperson).
• When I received calls from the media I reached out to CCSO to see if I could assist them.
• CCSO informed me that a package was observed by someone in the courts and they reported it to the CCSO deputies as being “suspicious.”
• CCSO brought in their K9 and “explosives” were rules out.
• Based on the concerns brought to the deputies, and circumstances (public area), the bomb squad was brought in to collect the package.
• My understanding is that the situation was resolved quickly and peacefully, and that the areas were all reopened around 3:50 this afternoon.

McPhilamy wrote that he only did the update because the new Sheriff’s staff does not yet have a public information officer (PIO) in place, and that if it had turned out to be a serious incident, the agencies would have coordinated, and the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office would have designated a spokesperson.