Suspicious bag deemed safe after shutting down part of downtown Miami street for hours
By Michelle Marchante and
Carli Teproff
A suspicious bag left inside an empty vehicle has prompted Miami police to shut down a section of Biscayne Boulevard in Downtown Miami early Friday as a precaution while officers investigate.
Miami Herald file
A section of Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami was closed for hours Friday morning after a suspicious bag was found inside an unattended vehicle.
At noon, Miami police said the package was “rendered safe,” and the roads had been reopened.
The vehicle with the bag inside was found between Northeast First and Third streets on Biscayne Boulevard, according to Miami police. The area is near Bayfront Park.
Both the northbound and southbound lanes of Biscayne Boulevard shut down before 9 a.m.
No other information was immediately available.
We are currently on scene investigating a suspicious bag left inside an unattended vehicle in between NE 1 and 3rd St. on Biscayne Boulevard. Biscayne Boulevard has been shutdown north & south bound. Avoid area. Seek alternate route pic.twitter.com/YZcPQWS2pa
Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow. Support my work with a digital subscription