Another day, another president...and a bomb threat

Don't worry...the presidential event and bomb threat were on two different days, in two different places, but it definitely made for an interesting 24 hours. Last night I saw Clinton speak at an event celebrating 15 years of U.S.-Vietnam diplomatic relations. This was my third president I've covered and it was a lot of fun. Clinton spoke along with Senators Kerry and McCain. The event was a mix and mingle type setting with just a few VIP tables so I was able to get on the far side of the table with Clinton, Kerry, and McCain and got some good shots of them. Today, when I was coming back from lunch I ran into police about a block from my office who were frantically pushing people out of the area and setting up caution tape. In DC, this usually just means someone's motorcade is coming by, but this time the police seemed a bit more worried. I went up to the office and a few minutes later found out (thanks to Twitter) there was a suspicious package about two blocks from the office. So I grabbed my camera and went back downstairs to wait and see what was going to happen. An hour went by before the bomb unit showed up, but then a man appeared in a green space like suit to inspect the package. The officer was pretty small even with my zoom lens. They obviously wanted to keep everyone at a safe distance in case it was something. Eventually the suspicious package was disassembled and it turned out to be nothing, but it kept everyone on their toes for awhile. After, I was able to get right up to the "bomb" and get photos of it while several officers waited for a crime scene investigator to come take photos. In the meantime, the Washington Post had been putting out traffic updates in their website since a huge area was shut down for this event. Alan had the idea to send my photos to them and see if they would publish them since he had an editor that he knew at the Post. I hadn't seen any other photographers around so I thought I might have a shot, and sure enough they published one of my photos of the "suspicious package" so the people could see what had caused a three hour interruption to their day. Tomorrow should be extremely calm by comparison and I'm looking forward to it. Photos and Washington Post link are below.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/drgridlock/2010/07/suspicious_package_at_metro_ce.html#comments