Authorities say the suspect was taken into custody on suspicion of making a threatening call to Huntington Hospital, which prompted a temporary lockdown at the Pasadena facility on Friday afternoon.
According to Pasadena City spokesperson Lisa Deldarian, the man who was an emergency room patient around 2pm called the threat after being discharged from the hospital. The facility was blocked and ambulance traffic was rerouted to other hospitals, she said.
The hospital resumed normal operations around 6:30pm, according to spokesman Dolly Houston.
Hospital employees were texted at 5:41pm. “Huntington Hospital received a threat from Code Silver over the phone. It’s a facility in lockdown, but there’s no need to evacuate.”
According to the hospital’s ASSN, Code Silver is the hospital code for someone with a weapon, active shooter, or hostage situation. of Southern California.
According to a copy of the message reviewed by The Times, employees received a “clear all” alert before 7:30pm.
The Los Angeles Police Department detained the suspect around 6:30pm and then moved him to the Pasadena Police Department. This is the lead agency of the case, Darderian said. There was no immediate information about what he could be charged.
The incident comes shortly after two “swatting” calls that urged key law enforcement responses in Southern California.
SWATTING is the name of a false crime or emergency report in a particular location, often in order to cause an aggressive law enforcement response by the SWAT team.
Dozens of heavily armed deputies flocked to Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital Wednesday evening.
Students were then warned to evacuate at five undergraduate universities in the Claremont Consortium on Thursday evening after the Claremont Police Department received a gunman’s phone warning on the Claremont McKenna College campus.
Neither Loma Linda Hospital nor Claremont McKenna’s call was considered a reliable threat, and it is unclear whether any of the incidents are related.
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