Help police solve local bomb threat

Although no explosive device was ever located, Historic City News readers are being asked to assist the St Augustine Police Department in locating a man who may have knowledge of events that led to a bomb threat; called in to a local convenience store last week.

The clerk at the Kangaroo Store located at 70 Masters Drive in St Augustine reported on Sunday, July 7th, that she received a phone call claiming there was a bomb inside her store and that everyone should evacuate.

“You can imagine how frightened the clerk on duty was after receiving such a threat,” police spokesman Mark Samson told Historic City News editor Michael Gold this morning. “When our officers arrived, they searched the store; but, they found no evidence of an explosive device.”

Based on a witness statement at the store, and information gleaned from surveillance video cameras at the location, a Hispanic customer, approximately 30-years-old, had been inside the store before the threatening call was received. The clerk remembered that the customer warned her that there were some people hanging around, behind the building, and that he thought they might be up to no good.

The clerk told detectives that she didn’t pay heed to his warning, until she got the call.

Police have provided reporters with a photo of the man they say may know more about threat and they want to ask him more about what he saw when he was at the store that day.

The yet unidentified customer is 5’8″, 170-pounds, and had a mustache and goatee at the time. He was wearing a gray pullover shirt, gray shorts and flip flops, according to the police report. The man was wore a black wrist watch on his left wrist. His black colored sunglasses were pushed up on his head while he was in the store. He was last seen getting into the passenger side of a silver minivan.

Anyone with any information concerning this crime, or who may know the identity of this customer or those who are involved, is asked to contact the St Augustine Police Department at 904.825.1070. You can remain anonymous and possibly be eligible for a cash reward up to $1000 by calling CrimeStoppers of Northeast Florida at 1-(888) 277-TIPS.