An Altoona man was jailed Wednesday for allegedly calling in a bomb threat that forced the temporary evacuation of a city school before students arrived for classes, authorities said.
Daniel Leon Garman, 55, a resident of City Hall Commons, 1130 13th Ave., Apt. 510, called the Blair County 911 Center at 6:45 a.m. to announce that a bomb at Penn-Lincoln Elementary School would explode in a half-hour, city police said.
No explosive device was found at the school at 411 12th St., but the investigation led to Garman, who was taken into custody, police said. No motive was given for the threat.
The search occurred before about 450 students arrived for classes, which began at 9 a.m. with some students arriving 30 minutes earlier for the school's breakfast program.
"As always, we have great cooperation with the law enforcement agencies. It's not common to deal with something like this on the third day of school," Altoona Area School District spokesman Thomas M. Bradley said.
City and school district police isolated and evacuated the area of the school without incident.
Bradley said he was prepared to activate the district's emergency notification system when he got the all-clear signal about 7:40 a.m.
"It was indeed just a threat," he said.
Later in the morning, the district was told of Garman's arrest.
"That was good," Bradley said.
Garman's arrest was a rarity, compared with the most recent school district bomb threat arrests in the region.
Three Penns Valley Area High School students were charged in connection with an April 30 threat that forced the evacuation of their Centre County school, police said.
A 17-year-old Tyrone-area boy was charged in Blair County juvenile court for a threat against the Tyrone Area School District, and an Altoona student was also charged in juvenile court for one of two threats in May 2008 that led district officials to search the high school and increase security, police said. Two other students, one an adult, were charged in connection with an April 2008 bomb threat at the Greater Altoona Career and Technology Center, court documents state.
Garman is charged with threats to use weapons of mass destruction, terroristic threats causing an evacuation and disorderly conduct.
Magisterial District Judge Todd F. Kelly committed Garman to Blair County Prison in lieu of $30,000 cash bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in Central Court.
Mirror Staff Writer Mark Leberfinger is at 946-7462.
