Police conducted a search for explosive at the Seattle headquarters of Amazon, last Monday, after a threatening note was discovered at one of the company's buildings located north of Seattle's downtown district.
The police search, however, found no such explosives at the Amazon headquarters.
At 10:30 a.m. local time Dec. 15, building security personnel for Amazon contacted the Seattle police after they discovered a letter inside a bathroom in one of the buildings of Amazon's headquarters compound. The authorities, however, did not disclose the exact contents of the discovered letter.
After a few hours of searching, the police said that they did not find any indication that the perceived threat from the letter was credible.
"It doesn't appear to have been anything," said Patrick Michaud, a detective for the Seattle police. By 1 p.m., officers were already leaving the scene.
However, the authorities will continue their investigations on finding out the individual responsible for writing and leaving the letter where it was found.
The note was found in Amazon's South Lake Union campus on the 400 block of Terry Avenue North, which is where the most important buildings for Amazon are located.
According to the authorities, some of the employees working in the affected buildings were evacuated while bomb squad and arson teams, accompanied by explosive detection dog teams, carried out a search of the area.
Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, personally assisted his security group to evacuate the buildings. Some of the employees were informed of the evacuation through an e-mail message sent to them.
GeekWire reported that the Day 1 South building of Amazon was closed down due to the threat, with some employees deciding to go home.
The Day 1 South building is located in the center of the headquarters of Amazon, which is the largest employer operating within the area. Amazon has thousands of workers across several buildings.
The bomb threat that led to the evacuation of employees happened within this year's holiday shopping season, which is usually the most profitable and busiest time of the year for the company. Bloomberg data reveals that a third of Amazon's projected revenue for the year of $89.5 billion is expected to come during the ongoing fourth quarter.
According to Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, the disruption in the workday for Amazon could prove to be not a major one as employees would still be able to work remotely using their smartphones and laptops.
