Suspicious Package Shuts Down Courthouse, Turns Out to Be Taco Bell Order

Jelisa Castrodale
·2 min read
A Taco Bell restaurant
A Taco Bell restaurant

Paul Weaver / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

The Tuscaloosa Police Department had an exciting Valentine's Day, and it started with an early morning phone call from an employee at the Tuscaloosa Federal Courthouse. According to the Tuscaloosa News, the courthouse worker reported a pair of suspicious packages on the building's front steps, and several officers were immediately sent to the scene.

Within a few minutes, the cops had blocked the streets to both vehicles and pedestrians, and cautiously approached the two unidentified items that had been left on the steps. When the officers opened the packages, they discovered what may have been, uh, somebody's to-go order.

"The investigation revealed the boxes contained what we have identified as a delivery order containing a Taco and Burrito Cravings Pack from Taco Bell," the Tuscaloosa Police Department wrote on its Facebook page. "It had been customized to include an assortment of regular and Doritos Locos tacos, along with four beefy five-layer burritos."

The roads were reopened less than 20 minutes after the original call was received, and the cops said that the contents of the Cravings Pack were "safely disposed of" in the dumpster behind police headquarters.

Although the majority of the Facebook commenters appreciated the officers' quick actions and their abundance of caution, a couple of people couldn't resist making jokes about it. "IN THE DUMPSTER?! ARREST YOURSELVES," one person all-caps'ed, while another added that "the bigger crime is those five layer burritos going to waste."

This isn't the first time that Taco Bell and potential explosives have overlapped. In January 2019, an unidentified couple found a World War II-era grenade while they were magnet fishing in a central Florida river and, for some reason, they took it to an Ocala Taco Bell before they called the cops.

The couple had the grenade in a plastic bucket in the back of their Toyota Camry when they pulled into the fast food restaurant and called 911 to report their potentially explosive find. The Marion County Sheriff's Office and its bomb squad responded to the call and evacuated the Taco Bell.

"The bomb squad removed the grenade without incident and advised it would be disposed of properly," the department said, according to the Miami Herald. The Taco Bell reopened shortly afterward.