Police in Florida say a woman called in a bomb threat to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tampa after losing a few hundred bucks on the slot machines.
Police responded to the Seminole bomb threat on Tuesday night around 9:30 pm. On Wednesday morning, law enforcement traced the call to a cell phone owned by Adele Belizaire, 54, of Spring Hill, Fl.
The Clearwater Police Department pinpointed Belizaire inside a hotel room on Clearwater Beach. She admitted to calling in the false bomb threat to the casino owned and operated by the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
Police reported that her “self-admitted anger issues got the best of her.” Belizaire said that after losing $380 gambling on the Hard Rock slot machines, she returned to her hotel room to “blow off steam,” but her rage resulted in her making the threat.
Belizaire is charged with second-degree felony of making a false report about planting a bomb, explosive, or weapon of mass destruction. She’s being held at the Pinellas County Jail.
Florida law says that a person convicted of making a false bomb threat faces up to 15 years in prison, plus a maximum $10,000 fine.
Casino Threats
Seminole Hard Rock Tampa is a sprawling casino resort. The 245,000-square-foot gaming floor is filled with 5,000 slot machines, 179 table games, and 46-table poker room. A bomb at such a facility poses to do great destruction.
The Tampa bomb hoax is one of several in recent weeks that police have been forced to respond to, and determine to be a false alarm. In late April, police in Bossier City, La., charged a security guard who worked at the Horseshoe Bossier City Hotel & Casino with calling in two bomb threats to his place of employment.
The Louisiana State Police arrested Darell Ligin Davis, 21, of Shreveport. He’s charged with two counts of communicating false information of a planned arson. He’s facing imprisonment of up to 15 years.
And in Las Vegas, the Metropolitan Police Department recently arrested a man staying at the South Point Hotel Casino south of the Strip on allegations that he made a call to McCarran International threatening to blow up planes and shoot people at the airport.
Bomb Threat Stats
Bomb threats make the news, but they’re actually rather rare.
According to the United States Department of Justice’s Bomb Data Center’s Explosives Incident Report, there were 1,228 bomb threat incidents reported in 2017. That’s a 20 percent decrease from 2016, and 28 percent decline from 2013.
However, the number of reported bomb threats targeting large assemblies of people has increased 30 percent since 2016.
Education, office/business, residential, and assemblies remain the top four targets for bomb hoaxes. Restaurants and courthouses account for about half of the bomb threats targeting assemblies.
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