MARION—On September 11, 2023, at approximately 9:00 AM the Marion County Central Dispatch Center received a call-in regard to a suspicious package located at the rear door of the Temple Israel located at 850 Mt. Vernon Avenue. The property caretaker arrived to find a plain brown cardboard box approximately 1’x 1’, this box did not have any labels visible, and the Temple was not expecting any packages.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene, as the Marion Police Department was tied up on several other calls. Upon arrival, Deputies spoke with the caller and deemed that out of concern for all those in the area the streets in the general area were closed to traffic. A call was placed to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office to request the assistance of their bomb squad unit. The unit was activated and arrived in Marion approximately 1 hour later. Members of the Franklin County Bomb Squad took an x-ray of the package and deemed it suspicious enough to use a low-level charge to open the package.
Once the package was blown open it was found that there was a shipping label on the downside of the package and that the package contained small campaign pins for the Jewish Temple.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office was assisted by the Marion Police Department, Marion City Fire Department, Ohio State Highway Patrol, and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad.
Chief Deputy Bill Collins stated, “This is a fine example of teamwork amongst our first responder agencies in and out of the county, a situation of this magnitude was remediated within a few hours, and everyone goes home at the end of the day.” Thank you to all involved.