It could be sudden jihad syndrome—or maybe just a lunatic whose inner voices got excited by the UK attacks: Bomb threat disrupts city core.

An area of about 12 square blocks in downtown Jacksonville was cordoned off by police Sunday after they arrested a man who they said had made a bomb threat. Police kept the area closed for most of the afternoon while they searched a car for a bomb, eventually concluding there wasn’t one, Sheriff John Rutherford said.

The man was identified as Yossef Bouchlarhem, 34, police spokeswoman Lauri-Ellen Smith said. When police first approached him, he was speaking in both English and Arabic and saying “Allah is great,” according to the police report. …

Police received a call about 11:45 a.m. reporting that “a man was acting strangely and making threats” at the corner of Laura and Forsyth streets, Smith said.

Lester McGriff, who was part of a construction crew working on the Laura Street Trio, a group of historic buildings on Laura Street, said a man was walking back and forth across Laura Street shouting that he was going “to blow up downtown Jacksonville.” He said police arrived and struggled with the man before subduing him.

“We treated it as a serious bomb threat,” especially in light of recent terror attacks in London and in Glasgow, Scotland, Smith said.