Bogus bomb threats target Walmarts across Maine, other states

By Julia Bayly

BDN Staff Writer

HOULTON  — Several Walmart stores in Maine were among an unspecified number of stores across numerous states to receive bogus automated bomb threat calls Saturday night through early Sunday morning, according to a company spokesman.

Several of the stores in Maine were evacuated Saturday night for a time while law enforcement and store staff conducted searches for anything unusual on the premises.

“This is unfortunately something that happens during busy time periods,” Walmart spokesman Brian Nick said Sunday morning from the corporation’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. “People looking to disrupt our business generate these kinds of calls.”

Calls started coming in to police departments around the state, including Houlton, Bangor, Calais and Biddeford, around 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

“We take any kind of situation like this seriously,” Nick said. “We handle them on a case-by-case basis.”

On Sunday, Nick said he did not have a tally of how many of Walmart’s 4,500 stores around the country received the calls or in what states. Media reports indicated stores in New York, Louisiana, Mississippi, Wyoming and Idaho were among those that received the threats.

Maine Department of Public Safety Spokesman Stephen McCausland said Sunday as many as 11 Maine Walmarts were targets of the threats. He was unsure of those how many were actually evacuated.

Maine State Police personnel — some with bomb sniffing dogs — assisted local police in searching the stores, McCausland said.

McCausland said the nature and scope of the incident indicates an organized attack that came from outside of Maine.

BDN writer Nick McCrea contributed to this report.