GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE-The Grand Forks Air Force Base was locked down for about two hours Monday evening in response to a false report of domestic violence.
Grand Forks County Sheriff Bob Rost said he determined the call was fake after investigation. An air base news release confirmed “there was no validity” to the report of domestic violence.
The address associated with the 5:30 p.m. call did not exist, and the name of an airman associated with the call was not listed among the base’s personnel, Rost said. He did not provide any other details of the call.
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Sheriff’s officers and air base personnel were still searching houses as of about 7 p.m. to make sure there was no safety threat, though at that time the call appeared to be fake, Rost said.
During the lockdown, cars became lined up about a quarter mile on the road outside the base’s main gate.
The lockdown was lifted at 7:30 p.m., according to the Air Force statement.
Rost said there have been some computer-generated fake emergency calls recently within Grand Forks city limits, and he believed the air base incident could be related to those or something similar.
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One of those false calls happened in late March, when the Grand Forks Police Department responded to a call of an emergency threat at Valley Vision.
That call required about three and a half hours of investigation, including the use of a remote-controlled robot and multiple officers, said Lt. Brett Johnson, who called false calls “a waste of police resources.”
Reporting false emergencies is a criminal offense, Johnson said.
Grand Forks Police Department also responded to the air base Monday, according to the base release.
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