CACHE COUNTY, Utah, Feb. 13, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — A Logan woman is facing a threat of terrorism charge after she allegedly texted a bomb threat to a supervisor at her workplace using emojis.
A probable cause statement from the 1st District Court of Logan said Brittany Renee Valentine, 21, is facing the second-degree felony charge.
On Feb. 10, dispatch received report of a bomb threat at a large workplace in Logan, the statement said. Upon investigating, officers determined a supervisor at the workplace had received texts at 6:49 p.m. The texts said “You’ll want to evacuate your workplace ASAP (purple devil emoji),” and “Tick Tock (purple devil emoji, bomb emoji, explosion emoji).”
The supervisor sent an image of someone rolling their eyes.
She then received another text “You think it’s all games? You have one hour to diffuse (bomb emoji).”
“The supervisor responded saying if the suspect could tell her where she works and what her name is, she might start to worry,” the statement said. “She then received another text which included her name, her workplace, and the color of vehicle she drives. A report to dispatch was made soon after. The building was evacuated and no evidence of a bomb was found.”
The workplace ended up sending all the employees home for the night.
Valentine and another employee also received a text at 6:34 p.m. from the same number, that said “Danger is in the air.”
The officer assigned to the case found the provider for the suspect number was TextNow. The officer sent an “emergency disclosure request” to TextNow requesting user information for the suspect phone number. They provided the officer with the name Brittany Valentine.
“I contacted Brittany at her house to ask some follow-up questions,” the statement said. “I then told her of the information I had located and asked if she had sent the texts. She denied it. I told her I believed she had sent the texts and that I believe she had made a mistake and that it got out of control. I asked Brittany to tell me the truth. She then replied it was a mistake and she thought she was going to be fired from work and that’s why she did it.”
Valentine was transported to the police station and read her Miranda rights.
“Brittany said she believed she was going to be fired because she had called in sick most of last week, and then ‘no showed’ on Saturday when she told them she would be there,” the statement said.
Brittany said she then sent the texts to her supervisor, “but she never meant any actual harm,” the statement said.
Valentine was transported to Cache County Jail with her bail set at $10,000.
