A truck driver was arrested Thursday afternoon, Jan. 2, for making a bomb threat that tied up traffic for several hours on Interstate 85 in South Carolina.
At about 2:45 p.m. a South Carolina Transport Police officer stopped a tractor-trailer for having a missing license plate. During the stop, the driver told the officer there was a bomb in the truck.
Authorities closed all lanes of I-85 near mile marker 44 in Greenville County, which is about 97 miles southwest of Charlotte. Officers from the Greenville County Sheriff's Department, state police and the FBI inspected the tractor-trailer. No explosives were found.
I-85 was closed down until 7:430 p.m. Thursday.
The State reported the driver has been identified by the South Carolina Department of Public Safety as Ahmad Jamal Khamees Alhendi, 28, of Oak Lawn, Illinois. Greenville County Detention Center records indicate he has been charged with operating an unregistered vehicle, conveying false information about a bomb threat, and breach of peace of an aggravated nature.
The arrest comes on the heels of the incident in New Orleans Wednesday when a man drove a pickup into a crowd of New Year's revelers in the French Quarter, killing 14 people an injuring about three dozen more before being shot and killed by police. Also on Wednesday, a man died when he set off explosives in a Cybertruck parked at a Trump hotel in Las Vegas.
