The Beverly Center mall was evacuated Sunday afternoon after a shopper told police there was a suspicious briefcase in the back seat of his car, according to Los Angeles Police Department officials.
The car was parked in a seven-story parking garage below the busy shopping mall. Authorities said the man told them his car was not in the same place he parked it, and a briefcase he stored in the back seat was not in the same place that he had left it.
The man said he'd recently received threats, and was worried by what he found Sunday afternoon, police said.
Some 1,300 customers and workers were evacuated from the shopping center about 1 p.m. As of 5 p.m., authorities were in the process of towing the car from the garage. Customers and workers were allowed back in the building.
A bomb squad robot doused and detonated the briefcase.
