The Bowie Brookshire’s Grocery was evacuated Sunday afternoon after an email bomb threat was received, but police found nothing suspicious during a search of the empty store.
Bowie’s store became one of a series of stores that received threats starting June 19. There have been emailed bomb threats at multiple stores in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. These bomb threats came on the heels of a mass shooting at a Fordyce, AR grocery store where 11 people were shot and four killed.
A bomb threat arrived through email on June 19 for a Tyler location and a store in Arkadelphia, AR was evacuated last Friday. On Friday additional threats forced the evacuation of two other stores in Tyler. Brookshire’s is headquartered in Tyler.
More threats came over the weekend including three Bossier City stores, grocers in Bullard, Albany, Brownwood, Bridgeport and Bowie, plus multiple stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
Bowie Police Captain Kent Stagg said the store manager called the police about the emailed threat at 12:18 p.m. Sunday. The threat indicated a “pressure cooker bomb” had been placed in all Brookshire Grocery Stores across the state.
The store was cleared of customers and employees, then police went inside searching for anything suspicious. The fire department also was contacted and waiting on scene. Police cleared the scene at 12:43 p.m.
Staff said it is unclear if this was an “active threat,” but they wanted to err on the side of caution. Officials with the Dallas FBI field office are investigating and have made contact with the local police.