On Sunday, Nov. 5, Laramie’s Walmart was evacuated for an unknown reason and closed for about an hour to an hour and a half while the police investigated the situation.
“I’m not sure who spoke over the intercom but he politely asked all employees and customers to exit the building immediately,” Ashley Hagel said.
Hagel is the assistant general manager at The Verge apartments and was shopping by the Christmas decorations with a friend when the evacuation began.
They were not informed about why the business was being evacuated. Hagel and her friend left immediately without any problems.
“It made me a little nervous but I wouldn’t say I was scared,” Hagel said. “Everyone walked out of the building very calmly and went to their cars. The craziest part was getting out of the parking lot honestly.”
Later, Hagel and her friend found out that the evacuation was due to a bomb threat to the building.
“Our supervisor told us it was a bomb threat, that’s all I know,” an employee at the store, said. “That’s all we know, we cannot give out more information.”
All employees were asked to evacuate the store but remained at the store until the investigation was over.
“Walmart received an automated phone call indicating that there was a bomb in the store so they began evacuation protocol and contacted law enforcement,” Lieutenant Gwen Smith, of the Laramie Police Department, said.
Law enforcement was called at 12:55 p.m. and investigated for about an hour to an hour and a half. Albany County Sheriff’s office arrived on the scene to help contain the area and the UW Police Department provided one of their bomb-sniffing dogs to check throughout the store, eventually declaring the threat a false alarm. Laramie’s Fire Department was on standby throughout the investigation.
“Our officers did receive information from our dispatch center shortly after they had arrived at the Walmart store [in Laramie] that the Walmart store in Rock Springs had also received a very similar call,” Lieutenant Smith said.
Officers in Rock Springs were able to trace the phone call to a number that existed in Rock Springs and were then able to find the owner of the phone number and speak with them. During their discussion with the owner of the phone number there were several other calls made at the same time throughout Rock Springs of various other emergencies.
“The officers went to where that phone call originated from and were speaking with the owner of that phone number when several other calls were received in Rock Springs,” Lieutenant Smith said. “Not bomb threats but other serious incident types of calls.”
One of these calls reported that someone had been shot and was laying on someone’s front lawn. These other calls occurred while the officers were talking to the owner of the number, so they were able to determine that the calls were a “spoofing attack” rather than real incident reports.
Rock Springs Police Department is continuing their investigation but everything in Laramie has returned to normal.
“I think the situation was handled very well,” Hagel said. “All of the employees and the guy over the intercom were very calm and focused on getting everyone out of the building immediately. By remaining calm, all the customers remained calm and there was no panic.”
