Outbreak Of Suspicious Packages Hits City

By Karl Klockars in News on Jul 22, 2010 8:20PM

If you were stuck in traffic this morning around the intersection of Division and Lasalle this morning, you can thank whoever (or whomever) sent a suspicious package to the Old Town office of Planned Parenthood. The intersection was shut down for hours while police investigated the package, which had been scrawled with "For all the doctors for all you do for women" according to the Sun-Times. Turns out it was nothing more than a dead possum. And since it was disposed of by a robot, the obvious Transformers jokes would be made if not for the other suspicious packages and letters found around the city last night:

View Suspicious Packages July 2k10 in a larger map

• At just before 9 p.m., a suspicious package showed up in the 1500 block of North Wells (which our money is on a connection to the Zanies mothership). Police call it "nothing harmful."
• At approximately 10pm, a suspicious "tubular canister" turned up at a bus stop outside of the NBC Tower on N. Columbus. It too was destroyed.
• At 8:15 a.m. this morning the Old Town Planned Parenthood package was found.
• Just after 10 a.m., a suspicious letter was investigated outside the Dirksen Federal building.
• Prior to all of last night's suspicious-ness, a dead skunk with a similar "for all the doctors" message turned up on July 3rd at the Family Planning Associates office on north Elston.

Fox Chicago reports that the suspicious package at the Wells location was a speaker box, and that it and the NBC package were unrelated, but that report was prior to the Old Town possum-ing. Are they connected? Not as of yet, but we have our hunches. So, far as we can tell, we have in our midst an anti-abortion activist with a thing for dead animals who also dislikes the federal government, laughter (or spices), stereo speakers, and Ginger Zee.* How anyone could dislike Ginger is beyond us, but so is sending dead animals to people.

While we are making some small light of the situation, there's nothing entertaining about using fear or revulsion as a tactic or means to forward any cause. While the outlier packages haven't been connected, and as we wait for a confirmed connection between the packages containing the dead animals (who knows - copycats do exist), it's worth remembering previous incidents involving Planned Parenthood clinics and threats of violence make any caution taken by authorities well worthwhile.

*Zee chosen at random. Maybe he/she/whomever doesn't like Andy Avalos. It could happen.