Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) headquarters in San Francisco was fully searched and secured by the police on Tuesday evening after the social networking giant received a threat. The authorities searched the premises and declared the threat as “totally not credible,” says a report from Reuters.
No credible threat
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) employees were sequestered in the building and were freed only after the police reached the scene, according to Menlo Park Police Department spokesman Dave Bertini. Facebook staff was allowed to leave the building around 8:30 p.m.
“It was a totally not credible, unsubstantiated threat,” Bertini said, though he declined to say what the specific threat was. He said that the authorities were not sure that the threat was made specifically to the Menlo Park campus of Facebook.
The San Francisco Police Department, which received the threat around 7 p.m., did not come up with an explanation. The threat call was transferred to Menlo Park officers, who reached campus and locked it down. An intensive search was made throughout the campus, and employees were held back until police confirmed that there was no danger.
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) employs more than 6,000 people and a thousand of those report to the company’s main campus at 1601 Willow Avenue. Facebook declined to comment on the incident.
Facebook hires a beat cop
In separate news, last week, Menlo Park’s city council approved Facebook’s offer to pay around $200,000 per year to the city to employ a full-time “community safety police officer.” By hiring a full time cop, Facebook becomes the first private company to have a full-time beat cop. Jim Bueermann, president of the Police Foundation, said that it is better to say that it is unprecedented, but it may be the trend in the future.
There are experts both in favor and against the Facebook’s move in hiring the private cop. Some say that it is a good corporate citizenship while others are not so sanguine about the company’s idea. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has its headquarters in Menlo park, a city with a population of 30,000 and considered as one of the most educated cities in California. There are communities that pay police to work for security such as concerts or sporting events, but these officers are not on duty and earn extra money by moonlighting.
