No Bomb Found in North Street Office Building

At 10:44 a.m. this morning, a man called into the Beth Israel Deaconess Family Medicine and told the receptionist there was a bomb in the building.

He called two times, and said the same thing both times.

While one receptionist kept the man on the phone, the other receptionist in the office called 911.

Medfield Police Chief Robert Meaney Jr. said the threatening caller was described as a middle-aged man with no particular accent.

“Basically, ‘There’s a bomb in the building’ was the extent of it; it was very brief,” Meaney said of the threatening phone calls.

The police chief said it may be difficult to isolate the phone calls because they came into a roving phone bank and not on one particular line.

“It is a classic telephone system that has several lines in it,” said Meaney.

“We’re going to work on trying to identify if there have been any issues with patients in the recent past and see if that goes anywhere,” he said, noting that Detective John Geary is investigating the matter.

After police arrived at 50 North Street, approximately 60 people were evacuated from the building, including children in a child care center who were escorted across the street to the Montrose School.  Most others waited in the parking lot of the abutting post office.

The Massachusetts State Police were notified and an explosive-sniffing dog arrived at the scene at 11:40 a.m.  By 12:15 p.m., the building was cleared and people were able to return.

Meaney said it has been several years since Medfield has had a bomb scare.  He attributed that to cell phone use and the ease to tracing such a call, as well as a change in social climate.

“In 2012, that’s going to be dealt with very seriously these days and that cuts down on it,” Meaney said.