A north Columbus street was barricaded for about 45 minutes Monday after a resident discovered a suspicious powdery substance on her mailbox.
The substance, police later determined, was cinnamon.
Columbus Police Department officers responded to a call on Jasmine Street at 12:46 p.m. after the resident went out to check her mail and discovered the brown powder sprinkled on top of her mailbox, according to Fred Shelton, assistant chief with CPD.
Police officers, a Columbus Fire & Rescue crew and an ambulance from Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle went to the scene and a barricade was set up 100 feet away from the house, which is in a residential neighborhood.
Paramedics determined that the resident had not been harmed by the powder and by 1:30 p.m. the scene was cleared.
But Shelton said the CPD planned to treat the powder like hazardous material until they knew what it was. They took the entire mailbox to send it to the Mississippi State Department of Health for testing.
Two hours later, police determined that the substance was cinnamon, Shelton said. The call to the Department of Health was canceled.
Police are not sure how the cinnamon ended up on top of the mailbox.
Shelton said that though this incident did not turn out to be a threat, people should still report to the police if they see something out of place, adding that he wouldn’t want a threat to go uncontained.
“If it turns out to be nothing, that’s great,” he said.
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