CEDAR CITY — Police responded to the Cedar City Walmart Monday morning on report of a suspicious person dropping off a package at a mailbox in front of the store.
Cedar City Police were dispatched to the store at 1330 S. Providence Center Drive at approximately 11:40 a.m.
The person who called to report the incident observed a man pull up in front of a U.S. Postal Service mailbox, Cedar City Police Lt. Keith Millett said.
“They noticed when he got out of the car he had a health mask on and gloves on, and then he had a package that he had squeezed with some tongs – a small package,” Millett said. “He walked over and put it in the mailbox.”
The witness, who was waiting behind the man to mail something, “thought it was weird,” Millett said, so they called police and provided them with the license plate number of the man’s vehicle.
Upon receiving the call, both police and emergency personnel from Cedar City Fire Department responded as a precaution.
“We closed off that area because we didn’t know what we had,” Millett said.
Authorities quickly located the man at his home, who told police he suffers from numerous allergies and was allergic to the contents of the package he had dropped off.
Police opened the package and found its contents not be a concern to public safety, Millett said, noting that the man’s reasoning was legitimate.
“He said he even goes to church with a mask on and gloves because he’s allergic to lotions and perfumes that people put on,” Millett said. “He’s allergic to lots of chemicals.”
A bomb squad response from Washington County Sheriff’s Office that was en route to the scene was canceled. Southern Utah University Campus Police also responded.
Cedar City News reporter Jeff Richards contributed to this report.
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Maybe he has extreme OCD with phobias. It sounds like he claims to be allergic to about everything…
There are people with allergies to just about everything. I have dealt with two of them, both with actual MEDICAL conditions. Not to say that there aren’t any number of hypochondriacs out there. But it would be pretty terrible to be allergic to everything. The things both of these folks that I knew, had to go through is something that most people could not imagine.
OTOH, with something that looked that weird, the reporting party did exactly the right thing. You just never know…
Political correctness at its fineness. LOL