Police declared Covel Commons safe at about 1:35 p.m. today after the building had been evacuated because of a pipe found in a fire extinguisher box.
The pipe was located in a fire extinguisher box in the loading dock of Covel Commons, and the fire extinguisher that should have been in the box was missing, said university police spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein.
An employee called university police around 10 a.m. and a UCPD officer determined that the pipe appeared suspicious because it was capped at both ends and resembled a pipe bomb, said UCPD Capt. John Adams.
The Los Angeles Police Department Bomb Squad arrived at about 11:05 and reopened the building after investigating the pipe, Adams said.
As a precautionary measure, the immediate exterior of Covel Commons and the nearby Sunset Village parking lot was blocked off. Traffic from Sunset Village to De Neve Plaza was also redirected.
With contributing reports from Kavitha Subramanian, Bruin contributor.