A Bomb Threat? HERE?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is ridiculous!

Just tried to go to my local supermarket, a small store in a quiet exurban/suburban town, and discovered three police vehicles there and the store had just been shut down…

Because of a bomb threat.

A BOMB THREAT??? In my sleepy town? In a minor grocery store? Did the threat maker perhaps confuse the address with the high school a couple of lots down the street? If s/he did want to go after a supermarket, why this modest outlet? Fer crissakes, there are three other supermarkets, BIG ones, within a few miles of my town’s small store.

IT MAKES NO SENSE!!!

It’s been at least a half an hour since I was turned away in the parking lot, where the bemused store employees were hanging about waiting. I’m a few minutes’ drive away and haven’t heard any massive explosions. I hope the police were able to get a sniffer dog in rather than having to search the place item by item. I’ll probably head back in half an hour or so and see what’s up. Or not up.

2

Protesting egg prices?

3

Heh. We actually have a decent amount of eggs available, and the prices aren’t as bad as I’ve read about elsewhere.

4

Let’s hope it’s a fake bomb threat, perhaps made by some disgruntled employee. Fake bomb threats are also becoming common at schools these days. I don’t see what we can do about them besides punishing the perpetrators, but I doubt they find who most of them are. Welcome to the new world order.

5

They were quite common when I was in junior high (1969-1972) also.

The first time it happened the school was evacuated and everyone stood around for several hours while the sheriff’s department and army MPs (though a county school, it was on the grounds of an army base) did a thorough search. With successive bomb threats the wait time became less and less. After so many of them it turned into what amounted to a fire drill and we all went back in quickly. As far as I know no culprit was ever identified, though everyone assumed each threat was made by a different random moron trying to get out of taking a test.

6

I’m assuming it will turn out to be a prank, disgruntled employee, or angry customer. BUT, a bomb in a sleepy town makes sense. A grocery store makes sense too. If bombs only happens in big cities, people living elsewhere will feel safe. If bombs happen even in sleepy towns, nobody feels safe. Schools, even in safe neighborhoods, generally have security personell and established procedures. Grocery stores are generally filled with people and have no security of any kind.

That is what makes me think there was no real threat,

I remember back in seventh or eighth grade, somebody called in a bomb threat to my school. No bomb was ever found. I do not remember if they ever identified the caller.

7

It’s easy to make a bomb threat. All you need is a phone, or a piece of paper tucked away somewhere that’ll be found. So anywhere where random idiots can be found, bomb threats can be found. And random idiots are everywhere.

As to why that particular supermarket, my guess is a disgruntled employee. Maybe one who just recently became a disgruntled ex-employee, possibly as a result of them being a random idiot.

8

I’ve never mafe a bomb threat; ate they usually done by address?

And of there are three other big supermarkets around, why don’t you go to one of them rather than wait for this one to reopen?

9

The address thing was a joke.

As it happens, the other nearby markets are different companies and I wanted specific items carried by this specific brand. Also, it was no big deal to wait a bit at home since I live so close and had no pressing obligations.

ETA: Checked with the police nonemergency phone line a little while ago and yes, it was all clear, so I’ve been back and shopped.

10

It happened at my high school in 1970. There was a public phone booth outside a convenience store located kitty-corner to the school, on the side of the building where the administrative offices were located. Apparently, the vice-principal looked out his office window and saw 2 students hanging around the phone booth just after the call came in. When questioned by the police, they two admitted that they’d egged each other on to make a prank call in hopes of getting the afternoon off. I don’t think they got suspended, nor know if they were charged, but when the story came out they were generally looked upon as clueless idiots, not so much for making the call, but for doing it within sight of the school and getting caught.

11

On a related note, this video went viral in recent days. It happened in 2023, and these parents are probably STILL thinking, “This wasn’t covered in the instruction manual.” TL : DW - an 11-year-old girl texted fake kidnapping reports to her local police department, and was arrested as a result.

12

Never understood why so many people think the grocery store is a safe, protected haven.

I mean, everyone needs to eat, even Bad People, and for some Bad People it’s not just where the food is, it’s where their targets are at.

Over the ten years I’ve worked at my current employer’s store we, too, have had a bomb threat (turned out to be a false alarm, thank goodness) and, in addition to the usual shoplifting, assaults on both employees and customers, pickpockets, purse-snatching, muggings, smash-and-grabs in the parking lot, skimmers on the self-checkouts, skimmers on the gas pumps, domestic violence incidents both inside and outside the store (one fatal at another store owned by the company in our county), arson (yes, a trio actually set our store on fire once), and probably a few things I don’t recall off hand.

Not everyday occurrences, but Bad Things do occur at the grocery store. You can’t have that many different sorts of people going in and out of a location and not have stuff happen over time.

We’ve also had various medical emergencies occur (for some reason I’ve had two customers “decide” to have seizures in front of me in the past six months) and once or twice someone has sat down on a bench or chair to rest and started their Last and Final Nap. Over the years we’ve probably had one or two drop dead in a dramatic manner as well, I just have been there for it.

Oh, and don’t forget the 2022 Tops Grocery store massacre.

Most of these risk factors - from unsavory people to families in crisis to guns - are present everyone, not just in “bad” neighborhoods or big cities.

Grocery stores: absolutely necessary… but probably not as safe as you assume. Approach with caution, guard your safety while there.

13

Is that a particularly widespread belief?

14

Not so much a “safe protected haven” as somewhere where you can reasonably expect there’s no threat other than “Karen” having a meltdown in the checkout line to the point of needing the deputies called to come take her away. But realistically, yes, everywhere the public congregates crap is going to go down, and even be a potential terror target, as has been pointed out re: Tops.

Hell, your house is not safe from this kind of shyte, as the swatting phenomenon shows.

15

Granted, your post is spot on. What bewildered me is, why pick a small store, barely a quarter the size of the three other markets within a few miles? If the bomb’s real, it’ll cause way less havoc. If, as is far more likely, it’s a hoax, it produces far less chaos, confusion, and general annoyance to a much smaller number of people. Especially on a Tuesday midmorning when the store doesn’t have many shoppers coming in. Seems like a waste of effort.

16

Whoever done it is probably targeting that small store in that small town for some perceived slight. That’s why.

17

That does seem most likely. Not that we’ll ever know.

18

What percentage of one-off bomb threats lead to actual bombs?

Usually the entire purpose of a bomb is destruction or ransom, just randomly saying a bomb is at a location and will blow in an unspecified time in the future doesn’t really fit the actual bomber MO.

19

Not being a “mad bomber” or a hoaxer I really have no idea why such a person would be pick one thing over another.

Well, OK, if there’s something personal involved there’s a motivation… but that’s usually not something known to the general public affected at the time.