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Wednesday, December
25, 2002, 8:45 a.m.
By BRANDON
LOOMIS
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO
(AP) -- Authorities closed a five-square-block
area of the city's North Side as well as the
Lincoln Park Zoo Tuesday after the discovery of
a suspicious substance outside the zoo that
turned out to be harmless white powder marking a
running course.
More than 100 police
officers and firefighters, some wearing special
suits to deal with hazardous materials, were
called into the area.
Streets were
blocked off. Several entrances and exits to Lake
Shore Drive, one of the principal highways in
the city, were closed. The zoo, which is
normally open every day of the year, was soon
closed. The public was warned by authorities to
stay away.
Field testing equipment gave
readings indicating that the substance "could be
anything in the anthrax areas," said Fire
Commissioner James Joyce.
"But they were
false positives," he added.
"It's a
completely inert substance," Joyce said at a
news conference. "It's scattered over a three-
or four-block area." Members of a running club
had used the powder to paint arrows to show the
runners where to go, he said. Wind blew the
markings so that they no longer looked like
arrows, and a Chicago Park District worker
alerted authorities.
Fire Chief Dennis
Gault said authorities secured the area and
prevented people in the zoo from coming into
contact with the substance. Zoo officials did
not immediately return calls from The Associated
Press, but a reporter who tried to enter the zoo
discovered it was closed hours early.
Tuesday's scare began shortly after 9
a.m. and was not resolved until about 1:20 p.m.
Asked if, in the current security
atmosphere, people should be putting flour on
the ground to mark things, Joyce said, "How
about red flour?" Then he added, "This will
alert them that they need to think about what
they are doing."
"We're satisfied with
the results," Joyce added. "We do what we have
to do. We respond and protect the citizens."
Eric Dawoudi, 26, a DePaul University
student whose apartment overlooks a zoo
entrance, said he heard on the radio that the
substance was harmless.
Nevertheless, a
police officer would still not allow him into
the neighborhood.
"I told him I heard on
the radio that everything was okay. He "I told
him I heard on the radio that everything was
okay. He said, 'You believe everything you hear
on the radio?"'
(Copyright 2002 by The
Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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