Information from WYSH Radio
More than 30 courthouses and other government buildings across the state—including the courthouses in Anderson, Blount, Campbell, and Knox counties—received hoax bomb threats on Tuesday, spurring evacuations, and in at least one case, the closure of the building for the day.
Fifteen threats were called into government buildings in East Tennessee, and 16 others in Middle and West Tennessee also received threats.
In Anderson County, the threat was phoned into the county clerk’s office, and employees there notified the mayor’s office. The courthouse was evacuated while officers searched for anything suspicious. It reopened about 30 minutes later after nothing was found.
That was a common theme as all the threats received Tuesday turned out to be bogus.
In Blount County, a man called the county clerk’s office shortly before 11 a.m. and said there was a bomb in the courthouse in downtown Maryville. Officials in Blount County ended up closing the building for the rest of the day because it took several hours for a Pigeon Forge Police Department bomb-sniffing dog to arrive and clear the building.
A similar spate of bomb threats were called in to 28 courthouses in Oregon and earlier this month, according to the Associated Press, similar incidents occurred in Nebraska and Washington. Local authorities are investigating the threats and are being assisted as needed by state and federal authorities.
This story brought to you through an agreement between Oak Ridge Today and WYSH. See more local news headlines on the WYSH website at http://www.wyshradio.com/local_news.html.
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