U. Police continue probe into packages

Penn Police detectives are working in partnership with the U.S. Postal Service to track down the source of two threatening packages that were delivered to University offices last Thursday. University Police Deputy Chief of Investigations Tom King said yesterday that postal inspectors from the 30th Street Post Office have begun examining the two packages -- one of which contained a large steel meat cleaver and the other a small knife. "They'll help us with the processing part of it," King said. "They look for trace evidence. It's basically physical evidence, even minute traces of physical evidence." University Police are also coordinating with other college police forces across the country and searching online databases to see if similar packages may have been sent elsewhere. Regardless of whether investigators are ever able to crack the case, King said it will be beneficial in the long run to obtain as much information as possible about the two packages sent last week. "If nothing else, we get as much detail as we can so if it does happen again, we can link it to the other incidents," King said. A definite timetable has not been set for the investigation, but King said police would like to see some results on the physical evidence testing after the Thanksgiving break. Officials from the Philadelphia Fire Department forced a 30-minute evacuation last Thursday after a suspicious looking package was found in the College Hall office of Vice Provost for Research Ralph Amado. Once at the scene, members of the Philadelphia Police Department's bomb squad X-rayed the package and determined a large meat cleaver, and not a bomb, was inside. Amado was not in College Hall at the time. His secretary was the first to discover the package and alerted police immediately. Just a few hours later, police received a call from an office in the Law School, where a small knife was found inside a package resembling the one discovered earlier. Because Amado is the head of Penn's research activities, investigators originally believed animal rights supporters or other activists might have been responsible for the threatening packages. But because a similar package was discovered at the Law School -- a seemingly unrelated location -- they have since ruled out such a motive.

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