Census takers probably aren't the most beloved people in the country, tasked as they are with knocking on strangers' doors and asking probing questions like How many people live in your household? and Are you or are you not Hispanic?, but they're not IRS agents. They're not so odious as to merit hatred.
So one would think. Nevertheless, yesterday a bomb threat showed up in the voicemail of a Census employee in Dallas. There's not a lot of detail in the police report, which you'll find after the jump. No word, for example, on what was said in the threat or if the building was evacuated. Police spokeswoman Ashaki Hardeman said the message was left yesterday but wasn't reported until this morning. She's checking for additional information. The FBI says they're aware of the threat but that it's being handled by DPD.
In the meantime, I got a call back from Stan Rolark, chief of the Census Bureau's public information office.
"It was actually a misdirected bomb threat," he told me.
Misdirected, as in the person calling in the threat had intended to call someone else but rang the Census Bureau by mistake. Rolark said he hadn't listened to the message and so he couldn't tell me what it said or for whom it was intended. He also couldn't tell me how the hell someone misdirects a bomb threat. I'm still chewing on that one.
