Suspicious Cargo Shuts Port

All work at the Port of Long Beach--a major component of the largest harbor complex in the nation--was shut down ahead of normal closing time Friday afternoon after a “suspicious device” was found in a cargo container.

A sheriff’s bomb squad determined three hours later that the device was harmless.

Long Beach Police Officer W.P. Lebaron described it as “an empty 20-gallon drum, loaded inside a car, with wires leading from it, and a flashing light on or near it.”

“It was something made to look like an alarm system, so that the car would not be tampered with,” Lebaron said.

The International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union told its workers to go home for the day after the device was spotted about 4:30 p.m. by a U.S. Customs agent at Berth 227 on Pier G, union officials said.

The union order effectively shut down the port, bringing the loading and unloading of ships to a halt. The shutdown came near the end of the afternoon shift, and work normally is not done at night.

“We were mandated by the ILWU headquarters in San Francisco to close down the port,” said one union official, who declined to give his name.

He said he could not speak further about the incident because of ongoing contract negotiations between the union and West Coast shippers. The contract expires Monday.

The talks pit the ILWU, one of the nation’s strongest labor organizations, against the Pacific Maritime Assn., a powerful group of shipping carriers and cargo distributors. The association has threatened a lockout if the union stages a work slowdown.

Union officials and Harbor Patrol officers said a 1980 Toyota Land Cruiser containing the suspicious device was spotted in a container being shipped to Russia by Maersk Sealand, the world’s largest shipping line.

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Times staff writer Eric Malnic contributed to this report.