An Illinois man was sentenced to five years in prison after making bomb threats to a southern Alberta town and listening in on a police scanner.
Justin Bagley, 37, of Elkville, Ill., pleaded guilty in a Murphysboro, Ill., courtroom last Thursday to 12 counts of disorderly conduct for making the bomb threats. The charges are a class three felony.
In February, Bagley made multiple threats in Taber, about 260 kilometres southeast of Calgary, over the course of 48 hours targeting schools, a business, the hospital and the police station. The threats caused the evacuation of parts of the town of 8,000.
Bagley listened to the police response through an app that allowed him to tune in to the airwaves of the emergency services.
In the days after the threats, Ken Holst, chair of the Taber municipal police commission, said the threats brought up awful memories of a 1999 school shooting.
“Nineteen years ago, we had the school shooting here, and as we went through these (bomb threat calls) there’s definitely people that came forth . . . that brought up a lot of fears and feelings that were present back at that time,” he said.
A joint investigation was launched between Taber police, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Jackson County Sheriff’s office in Illinois.
According to U.S. news outlet KFVS12 , Bagley had also made bomb threats to the World Trade Center in New York City on Jan. 25.
Bagley was given credit for 286 days served.
Twitter: @zjlaing
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