Law enforcement in Chicago shut down an entire street in response to a call reporting a suspicious package, which turned out to just be a can of Chef Boyardee on wheels.
According to CBS Chicago, the Chicago Police Department received a call shortly before noon reporting a “suspicious device” around the 200 block of State Street. Officers reportedly responded immediately by closing the area to vehicle and pedestrian traffic, as well as stopping the municipal rail system’s Red Line, which ran beneath the area.
Upon investigation, law enforcement found the suspicious package in the street to be nothing more than a can of Chef Boyardee processed pasta taped to a pair of axles and four skateboard wheels. A small green wire that resembles a firework fuse protrudes from the top of the assembly and may have been the origin for the concern over the object’s purpose.
Police reopened the street by 12:30 p.m. and began questioning eyewitnesses about the object’s source. Security footage from a local building showed an individual, later confirmed to be a design student at DePaul University, leaving the contraption in the street. Students and the professor from the responsible party’s class told WBBM Radio that the wheeled can of pasta was just a “prototype” for a design class.
“He put it down. He ran upstairs, I think, to go observe it,” said one student. “And the cops came. I think there was like 10 cops here at one point. And they were questioning him, over a can of ravioli. It looked like a toy. I thought it was like a car.”
“They’re thinking, though, must be that it’s like a radio-controlled pipe bomb,” added another student. “It’s got wheels and they’re going to go away from it and then drive it into something and then blow it up.”
The student responsible for creating and placing the device in the street was reportedly ticketed for the incident, though which law the student allegedly violated is unknown.