Suspicious Device Forces Downtown Street Closure

Police officers blocked off traffic in parts of downtown San Diego's busy Gaslamp Quarter on Tuesday afternoon for about an hour after a suspicious device was found outside a hotel.

The device, which was a wheelchair battery, according to a San Diego Fire and Rescue spokesman, was discovered outside the US Grant at Broadway and Fourth Avenue, prompting a roughly one-block radius closure around 1:30 p.m.

A Payless Shoes store on the 900 block of Fourth Avenue was evacuated.

Responding crews planted a counter charge on the device and detonated it at about 2:20 p.m.

Traffic reopened within 10 minutes of the detonation. No injuries were reported.

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