BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – As the Louisiana House met Thursday to debate a number of bills, they were temporarily forced to evacuate around 5:30 p.m.
Speaker Clay Schexnayder interrupted the meeting to inform lawmakers what was happening, saying, “I was just informed that there was an unclaimed, unknown package that was left in the corner of the rotunda, we don’t know what that package is. It was left in the Senate side. So, as a precaution for right now we are going to evacuate the chamber.”
According to Louisiana State Police, the situation was resolved around 5:44 p.m., and the unknown package turned out to backpack.
The evacuation only lasted for about five minutes, sources say.
During Thursday’s evening session, lawmakers were scheduled to address the much-debated HB813 abortion bill that would criminalize abortion.