Police respond to a bomb threat at a Utah bookstore ahead of drag event
Salt Lake City police said they evacuated a bookstore and closed off its surrounding roads Sunday after a bomb threat.
Salt Lake City police said they evacuated a bookstore and closed off its surrounding roads Sunday after a bomb threat.
Police “received information about a suspicious circumstance at The King’s English Bookstore,” which was treated as a bomb threat, authorities said in a statement Sunday. A police airport division K-9 team evacuated the building and blocked off roads in the surrounding area before determining there was “no threat to the community,” police said.
Authorities added they are investigating. The bookstore had a drag queen storytelling event scheduled for Sunday morning, according to its social media accounts and website.The events, in which drag performers read children’s books to kids, have increasingly been met with protests from far-right activists in recent months.
“It disappoints me that our fellow merchants and our neighbors who are so loyal and supportive of the store have to go through this,” Calvin Crosby, a co-owner of The King’s English Bookshop, told NBC affiliate KSL of Salt Lake City. “The right thing to do is to put books into kids’ hands, to those without regular access and to normalize diversity.”
The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City. GoogleTara Lipsyncki, a drag performer who was scheduled to read to children at the store Sunday, called the threat “an act of domestic terrorism” and said it was not the first threat of violence she’s received in recent months.
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