ASHWAUBENON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A large police presence could be seen around the Brown County Arena Thursday night.
“About 6:30 we were notified a suspicious package was located near the Brown County Veterans Memorial. Brown County Sheriff’s Department and Police were called,” said Terry Charles from PMI Entertainment Group. The group manages the Resch Center.
A Green Bay Gamblers hockey game was happening at the Resch Center nearby when authorities were called.
Police told people to stay inside the building, while others heading to the game were told to avoid the area.
“The people inside the building already were safe, we were told that by police,” explained Charles. “We told them what was going on outside and if it continues after the game is finished we would give you a specific exit strategy, ” he said.
Although this is the first suspicious package to be found near the Resch Center, Captain Dan Sandberg with the Brown County Sheriff’s Department said incidents like this happen often.
“We have a joint regional bomb squad with Brown County and Outagamie County. It’s a regional response and they are probably the most active special unit that we have on our department. They’ve been called no less than 33 times this year,” said Capt. Sandberg.
While Thursday’s incident seemed to be an innocent mistake, Captain Sandberg said that’s not always the case.
That’s the reason he’s encouraging people to report anything they think is suspicious.
“When they’re traveling or at the mall, please call the police so we can investigate it, cause in this day in age, We can’t afford to ignore stuff, we rather check it out and see that it’s nothing than for something bad to happen,” he said.
If you were not able to make it into Thursday night’s Gamblers game, team officials say you can use your ticket to attend another game at the Resch Center during the season.
