Police: Middletown Stop & Shop Plaza Bomb Threat was Baseless

An East Main Street shopping plaza was evacuated Monday for a half hour while police investigated a bomb threat called into Stop & Shop that turned out to be an idle threat.

On Dec. 23 at 3:30 p.m., the Middletown Police Department received a call from a Stop & Shop employee that the grocery store on East Main Street had received a "non-specific" bomb threat to businesses in the plaza, police say.

The Dollar Tree, Marshalls, Bob’s Stores and Stop & Shop were all evacuated as a precaution and a search of all the businesses by employees and police officers turned up no suspicious items, the report says. 

The Hartford Police Bomb Squad was contacted and and determined to be an empty threat, so the four businesses were reopened after a half-hour.