Huntington Hospital in Pasadena went into lockdown before dawn Friday after receiving a bomb threat, forcing the region's only Level II Trauma Center to close its doors and divert emergency patients to other facilities while police swept the campus with canine units. The threat came in around 5:40 a.m., and officers spent the early morning hours searching the hospital grounds and parking areas.
The Pasadena Police Department said Huntington Hospital received the threat from a group already known to law enforcement, and officers responded quickly to begin sweeping the building, according to CBS News. Aerial footage captured a heavy police presence at the scene as the search unfolded. Emergency patients were diverted to other local hospitals while the campus remained closed during the response, and CBS News reported it had reached out to Huntington Hospital for comment.
Police canine units and fire personnel conducted extensive sweeps not just of the hospital itself but of parking areas along California Boulevard, according to Pasadena Now, which reported that explosive detection dogs were brought in to inspect the surrounding parking facilities. The same outlet's report noted the disruption extended well beyond the emergency room: non-emergency doctor appointments and elective surgeries were also delayed or canceled as the hospital worked through the lockdown.
A Hospital With No Backup for Trauma Care
The stakes of shutting down Huntington Hospital, even temporarily, are higher than at an ordinary medical center. The 544-bed non-profit facility houses the only Level II Trauma Center and Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in the San Gabriel Valley, according to background compiled by Wikipedia. That means closing the campus and diverting emergency patients doesn't just inconvenience Pasadena residents — it puts added strain on surrounding hospitals across Los Angeles County that must absorb trauma cases with nowhere else nearby to send them.
Huntington's role as a regional trauma anchor was reinforced just last month, when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved $7.2 million in county funding for the hospital as part of a broader $73.5 million trauma agreement covering 13 non-county-operated regional facilities, Pasadena Now reported. The hospital also became an affiliate of the Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Health System in August 2021, an arrangement that expanded access to subspecialty care while Huntington retained local governance, per Cedars-Sinai.
Not the First Lockdown
Friday's threat is not the first security emergency to shut down parts of Huntington Hospital. In March 2025, the hospital was placed on a Code Silver lockdown after a discharged emergency room patient made verbal threats over the phone, a scare that ended with an arrest by law enforcement, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Whoever is behind Friday's threat could face serious legal consequences if identified. Under California Penal Code Section 148.1, reporting a false bomb threat is a wobbler offense, meaning it can be charged as either a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in county jail or a felony carrying potential state prison time, per Bulldog Law. The statute applies regardless of whether an actual explosive device exists.
Pasadena has already seen a high-profile bomb hoax prosecution play out in federal court. In May 2025, former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor and Pasadena resident Brian Williams agreed to plead guilty to a federal felony charge for calling in a fake bomb threat to Los Angeles City Hall, as Hoodline reported in its ex-deputy mayor's guilty plea. Federal explosive threat charges in that case carried sentences of up to 10 years in prison, according to Altadena Now.
Part of a Wider Pattern at Hospitals Nationwide
Hospitals across the country have faced a wave of similar disruptions in recent years. National advisories issued by the FBI and the American Hospital Association in 2024 and 2025 flagged a surge in mass email bomb threat hoaxes targeting hospitals and public institutions in multiple states, the American Hospital Association reported, noting that even threats lacking a credible device still require full security evaluations.
In response to that trend, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit and the American Hospital Association released collaborative national guidance in March, aimed at helping medical facilities build multidisciplinary Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management teams, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It marked the FBI's first joint threat management framework developed with a healthcare organization.
