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| Photo Credit: AP. |
BOSTON (AP) — A package exploded on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston late Tuesday, and the college said a staff member suffered minor injuries.
Authorities
said another suspicious package was found near a prominent art museum and the
FBI was assisting with the investigation.
The parcel
that blew up was one of two that were reported to police early in the evening.
Boston’s bomb squad neutralized a second package near the city’s Museum of Fine
Arts, which is on the outskirts of the Northeastern campus.
NBC Boston
reported that the package that exploded went off as it was being opened near
the university’s Holmes Hall, which is home to the university’s creative
writing program and its women’s, gender and sexuality studies program. It said
the FBI was assisting the investigation.
Authorities
declined to elaborate, but Northeastern spokesperson Shannon Nargi said in a
statement that an unidentified university staff member suffered minor injuries
to his hand in the explosion. Felipe Colon, a Boston police superintendent,
later described the victim as a 45-year-old man.
Police
converged on the campus shortly before 7:30 p.m., and the university asked
students who had gathered for an evening journalism class at the hall to
evacuate the building.
Northeastern
is a private university in downtown Boston with about 16,000 undergraduate
students. WCVB-TV said one of its reporters, Mike Beaudet, was teaching a class
there at the time. Beaudet told the station his class was moved outside but
that neither he nor his students heard an explosion.
Michael
Davis, chief of Northeastern’s police force, told reporters the campus was
secure. Boston police didn’t say whether any other suspicious packages were
found.
“We’re
monitoring the situation at Northeastern and we’re ready to work with the
university and our law enforcement partners on any prosecutions that may
develop,” Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said, promising “a
comprehensive investigation to determine exactly what occurred here.”
Harvard
University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both on the other
side of the Charles River separating Boston from Cambridge, said they were
increasing patrols on their campuses as a precaution and urging students and
faculty to report anything suspicious.
Tuesday’s
explosion marked one of the first big scares in Boston since 2013, when two
bombs planted near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three
spectators and wounded more than 260 others.