Plaza bomb threat ends up as hoax

By ROB NUNLEY / Sports Editor for the Southern Standard

A bomb threat at a local shopping center turned out to be a hoax Tuesday, but law enforcement and emergency management personnel took the situation quite seriously.

Around 2 p.m. yesterday, officers from the McMinnville Police Department, as well as the McMinnville Fire Department, Warren County EMS and the McMinnville-Warren County Emergency Management Association, converged on the Goodwill Industries donation trailer located in the Plaza Shopping Center parking lot.

Julie Watts, who oversees the donations to Goodwill Industries at the Plaza location, had contacted authorities after returning from lunch and discovering a threatening note attached to the trailer’s rear door.

“When I opened it up, it said something about ‘there’s a bomb, and I’m going to blow you up,'” Watts said. “Our handbook says to get everybody away from the trailer or the store, and call the police,” she added. “That’s exactly what I did.”

With fire and emergency medical personnel on the scene, police officers and Emergency Management Assocation director Phillip Prater examined, then opened, the suspected bomb site. Finding nothing suspicious inside, it was determined the incident was a hoax.

“Our officers went there, made an evaluation based on the circumstances and their experience, and determined it was, in fact, a hoax,” MPD lieutenant Bryan Denton said. “With the climate today, we take those things seriously, and when we evaluate them we try to take everything into consideration before determining the best course of action.”

Watts said if whoever planted the note intended it as a joke, there was nothing humorous about the situation.

“Whoever did it could be sitting back watching right now, laughing at all the cops and everybody that was called in,” she said. “But it’s not funny. It’s costing me work. I can’t even clock in because of all this, and if that’s somebody’s way of getting attention, they need to think of a better way — or go see a psychiatrist.”

Denton added any party or parties who can be tied to Tuesday’s threat, or any other such incident, could be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“The case will be turned over to a detective, and if any information comes forth to show who was responsible for making the threat, we would certainly go to district attorney’s office to prosecute them,” he said. “That’s not something to play around with, especially in this climate. It’s something we take very seriously.”

PHOTO INFO:
McMinnville-Warren County Emergency Management Association director Phillip Prater, right, along with McMinnville Police Department officer Todd Lassiter, look on as Sgt. Mike Lane and officer Lisa Norris search through the Goodwill Industries trailer near Plaza Shopping Center. The trailer was the site of a bomb threat Tuesday afternoon. (Dale Stubblefield photo)