Boston University building evacuated due to suspicious package; bomb squad finds no threat

A Boston University building was evacuated for a brief time Monday afternoon after a “suspicious” package was delivered to the school’s administrative building, but the parcel was later deemed to pose no threat, officials said.

The building at 1 Silber Way was emptied out of an abundance of caution after the package was reported shortly after 3 p.m., according to Colin Riley, a university spokesman. The package was delivered by a parcel service and had a shipping label but no return address, he said.

The Boston Police Department was notified and sent its bomb squad to the campus, according to David Estrada, a Boston police spokesman.

The package was cleared and the building was reopened by about 4:30 p.m., Riley said.

“In these days, you have to take extra precautions and we understand how someone might have been concerned and called police, and we prefer they do that,” he said.

The false alarm follows two incidents this month of explosives reported a short distance away at Northeastern University.

On Thursday night, a shelter-in-place order was issued at Northeastern University after a bomb threat was called in around 10:30 p.m. The order was lifted about 45 minutes later after the Boston police bomb squad responded to 360 Huntington Ave., police said. There were no reports of explosions or suspicious packages in that incident, and university officials later deemed the threat “fraudulent.”

About a week prior, on Sept. 13, a Northeastern University employee reported that a pressurized case exploded in his office, prompting an evacuation. The employee’s account of the event came under scrutiny by law enforcement officials, but the employee, in an interview with the Globe, strongly denied that he staged the incident.