PORT ANGELES –– Sheriff’s deputies are looking for leads after someone called in a bomb threat to the Port Angeles Walmart at 3411 E. Kolonels Way on Tuesday.
The store was evacuated after someone called the business line at the store at about 5 p.m. saying there were multiple explosives set to detonate within minutes, said Brian King, chief criminal deputy with the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
When deputies arrived and searched the store, they found no evidence of any explosives, he said Wednesday.
Investigators are now working with Walmart to see whether the store’s phone system allows them to source where the call came from.
Because no explosives were found, King said deputies are investigating the possibility of someone using the threat as a distraction for another crime in the store or nearby.
While the initial searches were finished within an hour, the erroneous bomb threat was taxing on the department’s resources, he said.
“It puts a greater drain on law enforcement resources and potentially any [nearby] first responders,” he said. “This is not a joke, and threats like this are taken very seriously.”
Possible shoplifting
Deputies are working with Walmart’s loss-prevention team to see whether the threat might have been a distraction for a shoplifter.
“They have a very robust loss-prevention unit with a very sophisticated camera system,” he said. “The second phase is going over all their footage to see if they see anything.”
Deputies arrived while employees and customers were still evacuating and conducted an immediate search for suspicious packages, he said.
Because the threat happened during the shift change for the Sheriff’s Office, the office had more deputies working than usual and sent two patrol squads.
After deputies searched the store and found nothing, employees helped perform a secondary search.
“We had a secondary search to identify anything we might not necessarily recognize as out-of-the-ordinary,” King said.
The store was back open to the public shortly after 6 p.m., he said.
Bomb threats are a class B felony and are punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.
