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Boone police search for Wal-Mart bomber
Boone Police
A surveillance image shows a person in front of the Wal-Mart early Sunday morning.
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Published: July 21, 2008
BOONE – Authorities continued searching today for the person who placed a bomb in front of the Boone Wal-Mart early Sunday morning.
A Wal-Mart employee called 911 about 5:40 a.m. to report the bomb, after looking out the front doors of the store.
"I just opened my doors for some of my associates to come in and there's like a homemade bomb sitting at my door," the female employee said to the 911 operator.
"A homemade bomb?" the operator asked.
"It's not ignited to where it's going off, but it's got like little burnt places around on it," she told the operator.
A bomb squad from Wilkes County used a disrupter device – kind of like a water cannon – to blast the device to pieces. Part of the device ignited in the parking lot, caught fire and then fizzled out.
Authorities won't describe the bomb, but said it could have seriously injured someone.
"This was a very dangerous situation," said Matt Stevens, an investigator with the Boone Police Dept. "She did discover it right after it was set and the person fled."
A surveillance video shows a person jogging up to the front of the store from the area of the parking lot near the home and garden section. The person kneels down near a front door.
"There is some smoke that starts, he is then pictured running away," Stevens said.
The video is very grainy. The person appears to be a young adult male, but it's difficult to get a description from the video, Stevens said.
No one was injured. Wilkes County's bomb squad was certified by the FBI two years ago to serve a 10-county area in northwest North Carolina.
The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the State Bureau of Investigations are working with the Boone Police Department in the investigation. Anyone with any information may call the Boone Police Dept. at 828-268-6900 or Watauga County Crimestoppers at 828-268-6959.
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