Austin Among U.S. Cities Getting Emailed Bomb Threats

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Austin is among the U.S. cities that received bomb threats via email on Thursday, police confirmed, with two dozen such threatening missives sent to various organizations.

"Austin, like many other jurisdictions throughout the country, has been impacted by email bomb threats today," the Austin Police Department said in a prepared statement. "The department has responded to 24 calls for service at various locations. There have been no devices found at any of them and the threats have not been proved credible at this time. We are continuing to monitor the situation."

The statement does not specify the nature of the organizations receiving the threats, let alone specifying if any schools were targets. One of the emails obtained by Patch sent elsewhere in the country demanded $20,000, to be paid in Bitcoins by the end of the working day.

Round Rock also received email threats on Thursday, a police spokesman told Patch. There, eight threatening emails were received. Like their Round Rock counterparts, Austin police didn't specify the language used in the offending emails. But officials elsewhere in the country have said the sender demanded crytocurrency payment, presumably as some form of ransom.

Related stories:

Bomb Threats Emailed Nationwide Demanding Bitcoin Payment

Round Rock Among U.S. Cities Getting Emailed Bomb Threats

Similar threats were sent to a number of cities across the country on Thursday, including Atlanta; Boston; New York City; Oklahoma City; Orlando, Fla.; Tampa, Fla. and South Bend, Ind. Columbine High School in the namesake city — the site of a April 1999 mass shooting that resulted in the deaths of 12 students and one teacher — also reportedly received an emailed threat. According to news reports, the threat sent there prompted school officials to place the school in lock-down mode.

Get Patch's Daily Newsletters and Real Time Alerts

>>> Image via Shutterstock