Talk about a blunder. A bomb technician discovered that a suspicious package that forced more than 300 workers to evacuate a state building contained a bobblehead doll awarded to public officials for perceived errors.
The package, sent by an intern at KOMO-TV in Seattle, was addressed to Department of Corrections Secretary Harold Clarke at the department’s headquarters in this town near Olympia.
It didn’t have a return address and the mailing label was handwritten. It also had stains on the outside, which could have indicated that the item inside had leaked, said Washington State Patrol Sgt. Ted DeHart.
“It had the classic indicators of a suspicious package,” DeHart said.
The building’s 350 employees were evacuated for about 45 minutes Friday after the package was found in the mailroom.
A bomb technician from the State Patrol who opened the box found a “Schrammie,” which television commentator Ken Schram hands out to public officials he thinks have done wrong.
It's a first
“To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that the bomb squad was called in when we sent a ‘Schrammie,”’ said Jimm Brown, a KOMO spokesman.
Brown said Schram sent the doll to Clarke because he was upset about the announcement earlier this year that the state had released 83 felons from jails early.
“I’m going to have to wind up giving myself a ‘Schrammie,’ for crying out loud,” Schram said.