Man accused of making bomb threat was referring to bowel movement, police say

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – A man accused of making a bomb threat at a Home Depot store in Kansas said he was only warning others before another man blew up the bathroom with a bowel movement, The Wichita Eagle reported. 

At about 12:15 p.m. Monday, police responded to a reported bomb threat at the home improvement store.

An employee told police he was “standing at the urinal” when another man left the stall said, “Somebody told me there’s a bomb in the building, you need to leave the building,” according to a report. He asked him to repeat himself, and the man gave the same statement two more times. 

Police said the employee left the restroom and called 911. 

Another employee identified the man in question as a “regular customer.”  When police spoke to the customer over the phone, he said he “had no intention of causing such alarm, and that the comment he said … was meant to be funny,” the report states.

The man said he heard another person in the bathroom say “You all need to get out of here because I’m fixin to blow it up,” which made him and another person laugh, because they understood the man “was in a serious need to defecate, and that he was attempting to provide a polite warning to the other patrons of the bathroom,” the report states. 

He told police he was joking when he gave a warning to the store employee and that he didn’t know the “men’s bathroom humor … was taken so seriously.”

The store has declined to press charges, police said.