A bomb threat called into the Albertsons grocery store prompted evacuations Thursday afternoon — and a police investigation into who committed the crime.
Sgt. Chuck Strange of the Lompoc Police Department said the store in the 1500 block of North H Street received the phone threat at 1:42 p.m., leading the store manager to begin evacuating customers and employees as a precaution.
Officers arrived within minutes and assisted with the evacuations, Strange added. Some neighboring businesses also were evacuated.
After conducting a search, officers did not find anything suspicious. However, Vandenberg Air Force Base military working dogs trained to detect explosives also were utilized to conduct another search.
“Three of them swept the business and made sure nothing was in there,” Strange added.
In all, the incident lasted about 90 minutes before police allowed people to re-enter the grocery store and other businesses.
He estimated about 100 people in all were evacuated from the various businesses.
“Overall, the whole thing went very smoothly,” Strange added.
Making a bomb threat is a crime, and the person responsible for sparking the incident could be charged, according to Strange.
“At this point now what’s happening is we’re going to utilize different technologies to determine who made the phone call,” Strange said. “It’s more than just a prank.”
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.