Waukesha County Courthouse closed Monday because of bomb threat (UPDATE)

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The Waukesha County Courthouse and Administration buildings have been closed because of a bomb threat. All court proceedings for Monday have been canceled and will be rescheduled.

Waukesha County Sheriff Eric Severson said someone called FOX6 News shortly before 9 a.m. saying five bombs had been placed in the Waukesha County Courthouse, and the first was set to detonate at 9 a.m. The TV news station reached out to the sheriff’s office at 8:52 a.m., and Severson said he decided to have the building closed and evacuated. He said an anonymous man then called the sheriff’s office at 9:10 a.m. with the same information about the bomb threat.

Sheriff’s officials, the Milwaukee bomb squad and bomb-sniffing dogs have been doing a sweep of the building since Monday morning. Severson said they’re going through the entire courthouse and the affected buildings. The courthouse and administration buildings will remain closed all day Monday.

“We’re taking it seriously,” Severson said. “A lot of these kinds of threats turn out to be baseless, but there was enough information that came in the original threat. We had literally eight minutes to do an analysis.”

Severson said he didn’t know how many people were in the buildings when they were evacuated, but he said all of the employees were at work, along with many members of the public.

Severson said he hopes normal operations at the courthouse will resume Tuesday morning.