Long Beach police evacuated Willow Springs Park this morning after someone saw a gas can that at first appeared to be rigged as some kind of explosive device.

Police said they were called to the park, which is just north of Sunnyside Cemetery, around 7:40 a.m. The device was originally reported to be a bomb, LBPD spokeswoman Jennifer De Prez said, but it turned out to be an empty, five-gallon gas can and some unattached wires.

Police blocking off the area around Willow Springs Park where an explosive device was found Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.

De Prez said the can was on the western side of the park, which runs along California Avenue. Police evacuated the park and shut down California along with some other streets in the area, De Prez said.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad responded and was able to make sure the device was safe, according to De Prez. Detectives are still at the scene looking into exactly what it was and how it got there, she said.

Any street closures, however, have been lifted, and there’s no more threat to public safety, according to De Prez.

Jeremiah Dobruck is executive editor of the Long Beach Post where he oversees all day-to-day newsroom operations. In his time working as a journalist in Long Beach, he’s won numerous awards for his investigative reporting and editing. Before coming to the Post in 2018, he wrote for publications including the Press-Telegram, Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. Reach him at [email protected] or @jeremiahdobruck on Twitter.