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

ROUND ROCK, TEXAS — Round Rock is among the U.S. cities that received bomb threats via email on Thursday, a police spokesman told Patch.

In a telephone interview, Round Rock Police Department spokesman Nicholas Olivier told Patch eight threatening emails were sent to various businesses and organizations in the city. No schools are believed to have been among the email recipients, Olivier said, and no evacuations were undertaken as a result of the received threats.

"I don't know the nature of all the organizations, but businesses and organizations are among them," Olivier said. He added that a couple of the emails appear to have been sent from overseas locations: "It appears at least two of the emails were sent from another country, and we're looking into the others to see if they were the same."

Olivier declined to detail the verbiage used in the threat. Elsewhere in the country where similar threats were received, the sender has demanded cryptocurrency payment, presumably as a form of ransom. 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.

Asked to assess the threat, the police spokesman suggested the emails were not being viewed as credible. "I don't have all that information; it's part of the investigation. I'll have to check to see if we have any other information or statement to put out but we maintain that we view this as a non-credible threat at this moment."

Commenting on the Round Rock Patch page on Facebook, one resident said her workplace was among those receiving threats. She declined to name the business, but said it is located off Chisholm Trail. The resident said two people in the company received threatening emails.

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Bomb Threats Emailed Nationwide Demanding Bitcoin Payment

Austin Among U.S. Cities Getting Emailed Bomb Threats

Austin also was among the cities threatened via email, receiving three times the number of missives as Round Rock. Like in Round Rock, police in Austin said the threats were investigated but deemed as non-credible.

Similar threats were sent to a number of other 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.

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