Times Square Briefly Cleared Out Late Sunday for Suspicious Package

A tourist's lost backpack caused a lot of problems for a brief time in Times Square on Sunday night.

The NYPD cleared out part of Times Square near West 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue after they were contacted about an unattended bag in the area at about 10:30 p.m. But police say after the area was cleared off and the bomb squad was called, it turned out to just be a tourist losing their backpack.

According to police, the tourist was reunited with his bag and Times Square was back open again to visitors on Sunday by 11 p.m. But social media still lit up on Sunday night as the center of the most populous city in the nation was briefly under lockdown.

This was the second time in four days Midtown was shut down because of a bomb scare. There was a suspicious package reported outside the Israeli Consulate at East 42nd Street on Thursday. The bomb squad was called in, but that proved to be a false alarm as well.

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