On Friday, January 7, 2022, approximately 9:15pm, unknown person(s) deployed a chemical mixture in the witness waiting area of Southwest Detective Division at 5510 Pine St. The chemical substance caused several employees to experience coughing and irritation to the eyes, as a result, a hazmat incident was declared and the building was evacuated. The Philadelphia Fire Department, License and Inspection, Emergency Management, Command Inspections and Homeland Security responded. The chemical mixture was preliminarily determined to be a combination of mace and an unknown substance.
On Saturday, January 8, 2022, at 1:55am License and Inspection had completed the cleaning of the building and cleared the facility safe to return for normal operations.
Homeland Security is investigating the incident. There is no description on the offender(s) at this time.
There were no reported injuries.
There were no witnesses/complainants inside of the waiting area at the time of occurrence.