A West Virginia man was arrested on several felony charges Monday after authorities said he claimed to have explosive devices at a federal building and a church.
The devices turned out to be fake, but James Dean Fowler, 50, of Bluefield, West Virginia, faces two counts of possession or use of a hoax bomb in the commission of a felony, one count of false reports concerning bombs or explosive devices, and two counts of threats of terrorist acts, Bluefield Police Department Chief Dennis Dillow said at a news conference Monday night.
Multiple buildings in downtown Bluefield were evacuated Monday morning after police responded to reports of a bomb threat at the town’s federal courthouse, local television station WVNS reported. Police discovered three suspicious devices at the building, Dillow told The Bloomfield Daily Telegraph.
Dillow said U.S. marshals at the federal building in Bluefield indicated Fowler wanted to speak to someone about national security and indicated he had an explosive device. The device was dismantled with a police explosive and was determined to be fake. An X-ray showed another placed at the church contained no explosives.
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“This was a very trying day for us,” Dillow said. “We were lucky these devices turned out to be hoax devices.”
A search of Fowler’s nearby apartment turned up no devices, Dillow confirmed.
Bluefield is a small town near the West Virginia and Virginia border, about 90 miles West of Roanoke, Virginia. It has a population of about 9,500 people as of 2021, according to the U.S. Census.
Fowler was scheduled to be arraigned later Monday. It wasn’t immediately known whether he has an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Contributing: The Associated Press