The "Results of Lancaster City's Bomb Scare" Story

It was a ordinary day.  Today's headline in my LNP Sunday newspaper read..."Fear of violence roils city." the subhead read..."Bomb scare, threats lead Drag Queen Story Hour to cancel."  Seems that parts of downtown Lancaster were evacuated yesterday afternoon amid bomb threats referencing a canceled Drag Queen Story Hour event at Lancaster Public Library.  The threats also specifically mentioned the home addresses of the library's executive director, an LNP/LancasterOnline reporter, the president of Lancaster Pride, and the LGBTQ+ advocacy group that was supposed to host the event.  The email sent at 12:07 p.m. yesterday said the bombs were to go off at 1:30 p.m.  At 3:16 p.m., police lifted the evacuation order, and by 3:30 p.m., downtown streets had reopened and people were filling the sidewalks.  An email sent to the library read, in part:  "Bring the fire department, we placed pipe bombs as well as fuel bombs which will likely cause a fire spreading to other buildings.  Evacuate so no innocents die.  You are (expletive) degenerates, pedophiles child abusers or (expletive) cowards who rather let or children get preyed upon than be called a bigot.  (expletive) you degenerates, we will kill you all and purify our land."  Earlier on Saturday Lancaster Pride canceled the story hour after a suspicious package was found inside the library.  For several hours, the event cancellation, bomb threats and evacuations caused havoc downtown and at the pop-culture convention Zenkaikon, which had drawn thousands of people to the Lancaster County Convention Center in Penn Square.  Police evacuated businesses and residential areas in the 100 blocks of North Queen and North Lime Streets.  Once they had determined that the streets were safe, K-9s were sent through the threatened buildings to clear them.  No explosives were found.  A similar occurrence also took place yesterday in the town of Reading, Massachusetts where there was a scheduled children's reading in their library.  That too featured a drag queen and king.  While the threats were unfounded in both communities, police said they "will exhaust all efforts to investigate who sent them" and asked anyone with information to call city police.  The city "will hold those responsible for the bomb threats which disrupted the lives of thousands of residents and visitors, as well as our local business community, and wasted pubic resources."  The threats specifically targeted the LGBTQ+ community, the media and Lancaster's Public Library.  Sad that life has to be so cruel to everyone.  But, life will go on and events such as these will happen again, somewhere and at sometime in the future.  Here's hoping they will come to the same conclusion as the event in Lancaster did.....with little to no harm to anyone.  Now, if only all people could only share the same thoughts and beliefs, life would. be so much easier.  But, we all know...that's never going to happen!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.