Safeway bomb threat apparently a hoax

A bomb threat phoned in to the Wells Fargo Bank inside Safeway at Sprague and Evergreen early Thursday was apparently a hoax. Police used an explosives-sniffing dog to search the bank and store for nearly an hour, but found nothing.

The call came in to the bank a little after 9:30 a.m. The employee who took the call told police that the voice might have belonged to an elderly male and was hard to understand, said Spokane Valley Police Sgt. Wes Eylar. The caller simply said there was a bomb in the bank and hung up.

Employees and customers were evacuated and the Office Depot next door closed while a police dog searched Safeway.

Nothing was found during the search, Eylar said.