Bomb Squad Explodes Suspicious Bundle of 40 Palm Coast Observers After Delivery Misfire at Courthouse

Last Updated: 11:23 a.m.

The suspicious package that locked down the Flagler County courthouse this morning, required the summoning of a bomb squad and delayed courthouse activities until late morning or early afternoon turned out to have been nothing more than bundle of 40 Palm Coast Observer issues oddly wrapped in a box and garbage bag and mis-delivered to the courthouse by a delivery person on his first run along State Road 100.

The bundle was supposed to be delivered to the Government Services Building across the way. It was grabbed by the St. Johns County Sheriff’s bomb squad robot, taken to an undisclosed location, and exploded.




“Instead of the Palm Coast Observer reporting news, today they made the news,” Sheriff Rick Staly said. And it wasn’t even April 1, when the Observer is known for publishing an edition worth nuking.

“We need to do this on April 1. That would be perfect,” Palm Coast Observer Publisher Brian McMillan said, before going from levity to Leviticus: “The worst thing is, this tied up public service resources,” he said. “That’s not good. And it made a lot of people nervous, and that’s not good, so it’s really no laughing matter in that regard.”

He was also regretful at the way his new delivery driver was singled out, though in his mind he’d just followed his GPS’ directions. “His GPS led him to the courthouse, so he was just doing exactly what the sheet said and what the GPS said,” McMillan said, the GPS apparently not distinguishing between Building 1 (the courthouse), Building 2 (the GSB) and Building 3 (the Emergency Operations Center), though in fairness probably less han three people can keep the three building numbers straight. “He puts it in front of the employee entrance to the courthouse and goes on his merry way delivering the rest of the newspapers.”




The papers are usually wrapped in clear plastic bag to protect against rain, dew and dung. For some reason in this case the papers got wrapped in a more ominous black garbage bag, heightening suspicions. “It was a box inside like a garbage bag, that’s why it was suspicious,” the sheriff said.

Staly thanked McMillan for giving law enforcement and other responders what turned out to be “a very good training exercise.” He was also appreciative for the bomb squad responding and the Real Time Crime Center quickly identifying the deliveryman’s vehicle and the driver himself, who was observed–so to speak–making the delivery by surveillance cameras. “The St Johns County Bomb squad did blow up a bunch of newspapers,” Staly said.

It’s ironic, he noted, that on Wednesday at noon the Sheriff’s Office was holding training exercises with the judges in their courtrooms, at the request of Circuit Judge Terence Perkins–the chief judge here–in the event there’s a disturbance inside the courtroom. The exercise was a spinoff from the incident in a Las Vegas courtroom that was a spinoff from the incident in a Las Vegas courtroom two months ago where a 30 year old man attacked Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus in a Las Vegas courtroom in early January.

Back into April 1 mode, McMillan said something about how the Observer is “the best news source in Flagler County. You can quote me on that,” and how “impactful” it is, presumably in a detonation container.

All court proceedings were expected to resume by midday. This morning’s previous account is below.

Courthouse on Lockdown as Suspicious Package Is Found at Back Door; Bomb Squad Summoned

A suspicious package found at a door of the Flagler County courthouse this morning, before the day’s proceedings began, forced a lockdown of the building and restricted access to law enforcement only. The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office’s bomb squad has been summoned, leaving the courthouse empty for now.

By 9:50 a.m., the package had been secured and the courthouse was expected to open within the hour.




No one had to be evacuated from the building before then since no one had gone in yet. But the first of innumerable hearings was scheduled for 8:30, with Circuit Judge Terence Perkins scheduled to preside over the first one at 8:30, and Circuit Judge Chris France, County Judge Melissa Distler and County Judge Andrea Totten at 9 a.m.

“All I can tell you right now is during a standard security check before the start of the courthouse day, a suspicious package was located,” Sheriff Rick Staly said around 8:45 a.m. “As a result, for precautionary reasons, the courthouse right now is closed and the chief judge and the clerk of the court have been notified.” Perkins is the chief judge, Tom Bexley is the clerk of court.

“We decided to exercise the abundance of caution and I sent all my employees home for the day,” Bexley said, though some employees have been called back and told to be ready to work, as court proceedings are expected to resume as soon as the situation is cleared by law enforcement: all judges intend to resume their scheduled hearings. As for hearings that were set for early morning, those will be rescheduled.

France was scheduled to hold injunction hearings, which typically involve urgent domestic violence or stalking situations. Perkins was scheduled to hold a sentencing and plea hearings, and two dozen probation violation hearings, among others. The county judges’ docket is no less busy.

“Nobody is going to go to jail, nobody is going to have their license suspended, we’re going to reschedule and apologize for the inconvenience,” Bexley said. “Many of the court events that were scheduled for the day will continue, but our office, the Comptroller office will be closed today, reopening tomorrow at 8:30.” Meanwhile, everyone had to wait, with hearings resuming “as soon as the building is cleared. We’re not sure how long that will take.”

“It takes a while, we don’t have a bomb squad ourselves,” Staly said of the expected arrival of the squad from St. Johns County, which is typically requested in such situations: there are one or two such incidents a year or so in Flagler County, involving either suspicious packages, ammunition or hazardous materials. The last time the bomb squad and its famous robot Frosty drove to Flagler County was to investigate what had been reported as a crate of grenades in a residential home in the Woodlands–the home of a man who had days earlier been arrested for murder. The crate turned out to be full of ammunition, but not grenades. While the squad had taken possession of the package, its contents were not yet known in mid-morning.

The Government Services Building across the street is not affected, with all business carrying on as normal there.

At the Flagler courthouse, the Sheriff’s Office deployed its own bomb-sniffing dog. The courthouse is rimmed with surveillance security cameras, and State Road 100 is an alley copiously equipped with cameras of its own, including license plate readers, so if anyone had either walked or driven in to drop a package with nefarious intentions, it was almost certain that the person, or persons, could at least be captured on video, if not their license plates read and their whereabouts located. But the sheriff was not prepared to provide any such information for now. “We have lots of technology in this county and it’s an active investigation,” Staly said.

In fact, the Sheriff’s Office and its Real Time Crime Center did exactly that to track down the driver.

Bexley said the hope is that this scare will follow the patterns of almost every other such scare. “We hope that nothing like that happens, this is just a routine scare that we can all respond to and move on and use this as a learning experience,” he said, with that learning experience already honed enough that when this alert was announced, everyone knew what to do. “Our response as an office is becoming a lot more precise,” he said, though it’s been many years since the courthouse, which has ample security of its own–and the only metal detectors at the entrance of any local government office building–had a lockdown. (A metal detector at City Hall in Palm Coast is activated only for council meetings.)