Grand Forks Walmart evacuated over hoax hostage report

A caller who said he had taken two people hostage on Sunday evening in a Grand Forks, N.D., Walmart was apparently playing a hoax, police officials said.

The store was the site of an unrelated shooting in May that left the shooter and one employee dead and another employee injured.

The caller told a Walmart employee over the phone shortly before 9 p.m. that he'd taken two people hostage in the store. The caller said he was armed and would harm a hostage if he wasn't given money. Police report that the suspect said he'd kill a hostage if police entered the building.

Grand Forks Police Lt. Bill Macki said Walmart employees were able to shepherd customers into a safe location in the store. Regional SWAT team members set up a perimeter around the store and were able to evacuate the 150 employees and customers.

When a store manager attempted to talk to the suspect on the phone, police said, the caller said he was joking about the hostage incident and hung up.

Police said early Monday that it doesn't appear there was an actual threat in the store. Customers and employees were allowed to move their vehicles from the parking lot shortly after midnight.

Macki said Sunday's threats were especially stressful for both people inside the store and emergency responders in light of the May shooting. Grand Forks police said they're taking the investigation into the incident seriously.

"It's really a lot of legwork, a lot of following up on information that comes in, and trying to locate additional information by contacting various telephone companies and so forth, seeing if we can establish where that call originated from and seeing if we can get some identifying information," Macki said.

Grand Forks police urge anyone with information about the incident to contact them at (701) 787-8000.