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Police at the scene in Mangere - Source: ONE News
Staff were evacuated from the Mangere Work and Income office after what was initially believed to be a suspicious package was found in a car park.
Police were alerted around 2pm after a brown suitcase was seen outside the office.
Cordons were put up around the carpark and a nearby school was told to keep all children inside.
Ten police officers responded to the incident, while a police dog trained to detect explosives was brought in and specialist staff x-rayed the suitcase.
Senior Sergeant Spencer Matthews said that any Government agency that deals with people on a regular basis such as WINZ has had threats in the past "and it was in light of that, that we deemed sufficient to attend at a greater level of scrutiny".
He said the package has now been inspected and deemed to be a "safe object".
Meanwhile, reports of a shooting in Mangere have turned out to be false.
Police said they were responding to a report on Twitter by hip-hop artist Che Fu that a gunman was in the Te Wananga o Aotearoa Marae and that someone had been shot.
Five police cars were sent to the scene but they have found no
evidence of a gunman on the loose and no one has been shot.
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