A stretch of Dale Mabry Highway was shut down Tuesday morning while police officers and a bomb squad examined an unattended package.

It turned out to be a box of garbage.

The highway was shut down for the short distance between Bay to Bay Boulevard and San Juan Boulevard from around 10:45 a.m. until noon.

Authorities said the package, located near a mailbox off Santiago Street W., was initially spotted by a woman riding a bike. A police K-9 "alerted" to something suspicious inside, and the Regional Bomb Team was called out to investigate.

Tampa police spokesperson Laura McElroy acknowledged that "everybody is certainly on a higher alert" after the recent Boston Marathon bombings, but said the precautionary steps would have been taken anyway.

"The bottom line is it's very rare when a K-9 alerts, so we would be taking this just as seriously, despite the sensitivity of what's going on in Boston," she said.

Coincidentally, regional bomb training was held at Raymond James Stadium Tuesday.

This kind of specialized training isn’t new but it’s going to happen more often.

"In light of what happened in Boston, we’ll go back to doing that monthly. We did do some of the trainings post RNC but we were not doing it monthly,” said McElroy.

Officers say if you see something suspicious play it safe and call police.



“I think people are paying attention. I think it’s very important if something is seen to call it in because we’re ready,” said McElroy.