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Person detained following bomb threat at State Capitol

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BATON ROUGE- One person is in custody following bomb threats Monday evening at the State Capitol and Hollywood Casino in downtown Baton Rouge, State Police say.

A bomb threat was called into the State Capitol just before 6:30 p.m. Minutes later, a similar threat was called into the Hollywood Casino. State Police Col. Mike Edmonson said the swift response shows that the threats are taken seriously.

"It's not a game," he explains. "To make a phone call that threatens a school, a mall, the State Capitol, it's not a game".

The State Police bomb squad swept the State Capitol and gave the all clear, but Col. Edmonson is concerned because he says while legislators were evacuated, people in other parts of the building were not.

"I want to know from a security prospective, when they made the decision to evacuate the Capitol, how was everyone notified, because obviously at this point, it seems like everyone was notified," he told News 2's Brittany Weiss. "So we need to find out, okay, who's responsible for that inside the Capitol."

The Hollywood Casino performed a sweep of the building themselves and no threat was found.

State Police said a man turned himself in at the Department of Public Safety, near the Hollywood Casino shortly after the calls were made. Col. Edmonson said he told him that "God told him there was a bomb there" (the Capitol and the casino).

State Police haven't released the man's name as of Tuesday at 11 a.m.

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