Brigantine beach reopens after police investigate bomb threat

In the middle of the busy Fourth of July weekend, police in Brigantine, N.J., were forced to send out the most dreaded of Shore town alerts: The beach needed to be evacuated.

Cove Beach, in particular, which had recently attracted capacity crowds.

No one had yelled “Shark!” Instead, as Brigantine officials explained in a post on the island’s official Facebook page about 11 a.m. Saturday, a permit checker had discovered a threatening note that promised an improvised explosive device had been placed somewhere along the beach.

The threat forced a long line of beach-goers to abandon the sand and sunshine, trudge to their cars, and leave the area as police began searching the beach for any signs of the supposed explosive device.

“OMG. Really? Of course,” one commenter wrote on Brigantine’s Facebook page.

“WTF is wrong with people!!” wrote another person.

The angst, however, was short-lived. Brigantine police reopened the beach shortly before 2 p.m., after no devices were found, and the threat was deemed to not have been credible.