Bomb threat shuts down Jamestown Walmart, triggers school lockdown

A bomb threat at Jamestown Walmart sent shoppers and employees out of the store, locked the doors and briefly put Jamestown Public Schools into lockdown while police and county deputies searched the building and cleared the area.

Police were notified around 10:22 to 10:30 a.m. on April 22 after an employee said someone called the store and claimed a bomb had been placed in a package inside the building and would go off in an hour. Officers moved people to a safe location, blocked the doors and used a drone over the store as they checked both inside and outside the property.

The Walmart Supercenter involved is store #1649 at 921 25th St SW, a major retail stop for Jamestown and much of Stutsman County. The store’s regular hours run from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., but it stayed shut for about 70 minutes while law enforcement searched for anything suspicious. Officers found nothing, and authorities later said the threat was not credible.

Jamestown Public Schools issued a shelter-in-place order as a precaution soon after police were notified, saying there was no direct threat to students or staff. The district also kept people from entering or leaving school property until further notice. That order was lifted by about 11:35 a.m., and another report said there was no longer a police presence at Walmart by about 11:47 a.m.

The response showed how quickly local agencies can lock down a threat in a small community. The Stutsman County Sheriff’s Office says it averages roughly 7,000 calls for service each year, and the Jamestown Police Department says it operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The Sheriff’s Office led the investigation with help from North Dakota Highway Patrol troopers.

For residents, the incident underscored how one phone call can ripple through daily life in Jamestown. A store trip turned into an evacuation, a school day turned into a lockdown, and public safety crews spent the morning sorting out a threat that ended up being false.