Police call off alert for suspicious rental truck

Boston and State Police have called off an alert for a suspicious rental truck carrying large containers, after finding the vehicle and determining that it was collecting charitable goods, authorities said.

State Police spokesman David Procopio said earlier today that a witness had reported seeing three men loading 55-gallon drums into a yellow Penske truck at about 10:15 p.m. yesterday in the 600 block of Columbus Avenue in Roxbury.

In a follow-up email this afternoon, Procopio said police had found the truck in question and determined that it posed no threat. By that time though, as a precaution, troopers had stopped two other Penske trucks that matched the description.

Procopio and a Boston police spokesman both said they did not know where the truck had been found.

Earlier in the day, a Penske spokesman said no company trucks had been reported lost or stolen in the Boston area.