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Taber Police Chief credits cooperation in quickly solving bomb threat investigation

Feb 12, 2019 | 4:36 PM

The Taber Police Service held an availability on Tuesday, Feb. 12, to answer questions following the arrest of a man from Elkville, Illinois, on 11 counts of felony disorderly conduct for making various bomb threats in Taber this past weekend.

Police Chief Graham Abela says they tied up a lot of police resources this weekend, and although their officers are small in numbers, they’re mighty.

“They were able to attend and deal with the matters and we had great cooperation with the Taber Fire Department in utilizing their resources as well,” Abela added.

Taber Police first received a phone call from an unknown man advising that there was a bomb located at the Walmart in Taber at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 7.

Both the police and fire department responded at almost the same time. The Taber Walmart store received a similar phone call and commenced evacuating the building. A search was conducted and nothing suspicious was located.

The following day, on Friday, Feb. 8, at 8:24 a.m. police received a report from Westlake Elementary and W.R. Myers school about a bomb threat. Police resources were deployed to each school and school officials enacted their respective policies involving threats or this nature. Children of each school were secured, and a search of the building determined nothing suspicious.

Then at 12:08 p.m., Central School received a call about a bomb threat that police were notified about. School was already out for the day, and a search was completed of the that found nothing suspicious there either. While these calls were coming in, Taber Police personnel were investigating the origin of the calls and three suspect phone numbers were identified from two of the schools.

A short time later at 2:15 p.m. the Taber Walmart store received another bomb threat phone call. Walmart made the decision to evacuate the store, and again both police and fire personnel searched but nothing suspicious was located.

Taber Police dispatch received a call advising at 7:05 p.m. that there was a bomb in the police station but found nothing following a search of the facility.

Five minutes later the Taber Walmart received another bomb threat phone call. Walmart staff again evacuated the store upon the arrival of the police and fire department, but nothing suspicious could be located.

The next day, Saturday, Feb, 10, it was the Taber Hospital receiving a phone call about a bomb in the building at 10:43 a.m.

Taber Police and the Fire Department responded once again, and the hospital staff followed their procedures for bomb threats, but a search of the facility resulted in nothing suspicious being found.

Around the same time, about a minute later, the CIBC bank in Taber received a phone call about a bomb threat. Police and fire attended and worked with bank staff to search the facility but couldn’t find anything suspicious.

The last call received was the second call made to the Taber hospital, this time at 2:18 p.m. about a bomb threat. Once again, the police and fire department responded and again nothing suspicious was found following a search.

During these responses, Abela explained investigators with the Taber Police were in contact with a technical forensic expert from the Medicine Hat Police Service.

It was determined that one of the numbers originated in Illinois, and through liaison with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit from the United States Department of Homeland Security, they were able to obtain an administrative subpoena for phone records associated with the suspect’s phone number.

They identified the registered owner and determined he resided in Jackson County, Illinois.

Contact was made with local law enforcement, a suspect was identified, and Jackson County Sheriffs Deputies attended a residence in Elkville, Illinois and arrested 38-year-old Justin Bagley.

Bagley has been charged in the United States and is currently being held with the Department of Corrections in Jackson County. Abela says the impact on the community during this period of time was significant.

“Through our social media feeds and through e-mails that we had received we knew that there were individuals in the community who were worried, rightfully so. That’s why it was so important to us as a police agency to be able to action this as soon as we could and get the investigation going so we could identify the individual involved. Solving this as quickly as we did resulted in a lot of reduced anxiety in the community, and I can tell you that as soon as we made a social media post that we had someone in custody I could almost sense the relief just over social media that the community was feeling,” Abela said.

The Taber Police continue to assist with the State Attorney’s office in Illinois, and the Jackson County Police with their investigation. At this time, Taber Police are not contemplating laying their own charges, as the public interest to do so may be already accomplished through U.S. law.

So, why Taber? Jackson County detectives interviewed Bagley and determined that there’s no known personal connection to the community.

Bagley selected Taber through an application that allows people to listen to radio transmissions of emergency services. Bagley located the Taber Police with the use of this application and made the calls to the various locations in the community.

He was previously convicted in 2005 and served a jail sentence in the U.S. for a similar offence.

This investigation took multiple police services, and different agencies and Abela believes that cooperation was a key to solving this quickly.

“The Taber Police Service has great relationships with law enforcement in the region, we specifically have a great relationship with Homeland Security in Montana. We work proactively on investigations together throughout the year, and we have a great network. The contacts that we have were utilized in this investigation to action US searches, and as a result, we were able to identify our suspect fairly quickly.

“We knew at about 1 p.m. [on Saturday] who our suspect was through the phone number and it took a little bit of time to get through the administrative judicial authorizations that are required in order to search people’s phones. It should take time, that’s people’s privacy, but at the same time we wanted to action that quickly and we did so through our network,” Abela stated, adding Jackson County police were aware of Bagley, and it wasn’t a leap for them to draw the connection to this offence when the Taber police reached out.

Chief Abela took time to specifically thank a handful of agencies and services including: the Taber Fire Department, the Horizon and Holy Spirit School Divisions, the school administrations, the Town of Taber council, CAO, the Taber Municipal Police Commission, the Medicine Hat Police Service, the United States Department of Homeland Security’s ICE unit, and the Jackson County Sheriffs Department.

One of the key connections was with the Medicine Hat Police Service, and Abela says after reaching out for assistance from Chief Andy McGrogan, it was provided instantly.

“I can tell you that officer [the technical forensic expert] worked many hours this past weekend on his day’s off to give us the information that we needed. I personally called down to Chief McGrogran and thanked him for those efforts, and I will follow that up with a commendation to that officer. We know that in Alberta, law enforcement are partners. Although we are small, we lend hands when required and our larger agencies to the east and west of us also provide assistance when we need it. We’re very thankful for those partnerships, and they’re very strong,” Abela said.