Dallas police received an anonymous threat against officers across the city, and the department was taking extra safety precautions, it said on Saturday.
Cable news outlets reported that police had surrounded a parking garage next to police headquarters, which was on lockdown and surrounded by SWAT team vehicles at about 5:45 p.m. Central Daylight Time.
Police tweeted about 90 minutes later that a search of the garage was completed and no suspect was found, but that a K-9 unit was doing a second search as a precautionary measure. By 7:50 p.m. the all-clear had been issued.
"The Dallas Police Department received an anonymous threat against law enforcement across the city and has taken precautionary measures" to heighten security, Dallas police said in an emailed statement.
Various unconfirmed reports included that a masked man had been seen nearby and that someone had been cornered in the parking garage.
Fox News Channel's Rick Leventhal reported that a Dallas Police Officer saw someone on the second floor of the garage and that the person ran. Leventhal also reported that no shots have been fired, but that a blast that had been reported was actually a "shotgun blast" inside the garage fired by law enforcement to blast open a locked area.
News outlets stopped live broadcasts from the scene at the request of Dallas police.
Initial media reports that police headquarters were on lockdown were not true, the police department tweeted about an hour after the incident began.
© 2023 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.