Harassing phone calls turn into bomb threat

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Police officers surrounded a Greencastle bank Tuesday afternoon after sexually-harassing phone calls turned into bomb threats.

Tuesday afternoon was shaping into a rather normal, mundane day at the Old National Bank location at 1027 Indianapolis Road, until a series of harassing calls -- predominantly sexual in nature -- began flooding the bank's incoming lines at approximately 4:30 p.m., according to police at the scene.

According to GPD Detective Randy Seipel, employees initially began fielding the calls, but later let them go directly to the bank's answering service.

A strong GPD presence was observed at the bank at around 5 p.m. At that point, the bank had been shut down and employees had been evacuated.

Officers were reluctant to comment on the pending situation at that time, but later, through Det. Seipel's statement, it was learned that a review of the bank's incoming messages revealed a number of the same types of sexually explicit messages, with a notable exception:

The last message came from an unidentified male caller who told bank staff, "There might be a bomb there, and it might go off in 15 minutes."

The threat of a possible explosive device within the facility prompted an evacuation and search for a potential bomb. The search ensued under normal procedures, and no suspicious items were located.

The facility was declared safe and secured by GPD at 5:25 p.m.

When questioned about the possibility of using voice recognition technology to facilitate identification of the caller, Seipel said the technology doesn't exist locally, at this time.

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  • It's a good thing that Greencastle has a well trained, well staffed police department to respond to such serious matters.

    -- Posted by Xgamer on Wed, Apr 2, 2008, at 5:15 AM
  • Surely we can monitor future calls and find the culprit(s). Harassing phone calls and bomb threats in little old Greencastle! Good grief!

    -- Posted by not gullible on Wed, Apr 2, 2008, at 10:57 AM
  • Uhohnono, true, but there WERE officers available, and they DID show up. Other neighboring towns have only a diminished force, a rumored commissioner, and a new Bat signal that only works at night (if it overcast out). You got to give kudos to at least a response.

    greencastlestev has a sad but true point to the phone harrassment situation. You can trace a call to the phone, but you can't prove who called. Like arson, you can prove it is an arson fire but proving who did it is tough.

    My sympathies to the employees at the bank who went through this ordeal.

    -- Posted by Xgamer on Wed, Apr 2, 2008, at 7:29 PM
  • I am glad that you were allowed to see my post at least for a while.It seems the truth is hard for the banner graphic to swallow.And they were there and saw what was done.Why can we not expect this paper to print the truth.

    -- Posted by greencastlestev on Fri, Apr 4, 2008, at 12:36 PM
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