Man accused in Kettering bomb threat arrested

UPDATE @ 1:50 a.m. (April 12)

A man accused of making a bomb threat that forced the evacuation of the Tenneco plant in Kettering on April 7 has been arrested.

Online jail records indicate Manuel Deon Reed was booked into the Kettering Jail around 7 p.m. Tuesday on a charge of false alarms.

UPDATE @ 1:40 p.m. (April 11)

Police in Kettering have identified the suspect believed responsible for making a bomb threat that forced the evacuation of the Tenneco auto parts plant on Woodman Drive.

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Manuel D. Reed on suspicion of making false alarms, Kettering police posted on their Facebook page.

Police credited the investigative work of detectives to confirm the identity and thanked the public for the calls and tips the department received in the case.

EARLIER

Kettering police are searching for a “person of interest” in a bomb threat Friday that evacuated the Tenneco auto parts plant off Woodman Drive, pulling hundreds of workers off the job.

A second emergency also evacuated the DMAX engine plant in nearby Moraine a few hours later Friday, and police will search for a connection.

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No bomb or immediate threat was found in the Kettering evacuation, and no one was hurt.

“We have a person of interest who our detectives are trying to get in touch with,” said Kettering Officer John Jung. “It would appear that the person who did this could be facing charges of making false alarms, which due to the amount (of income) lost by Tenneco that day — by not being able to manufacture — could face a third-degree felony.”

Jung would not describe the person of interest, saying the person had not been formally charged.

Police responded to the threat for some four hours, from about 6 a.m. until about 10 a.m. when crews cleared the scene.

The DMAX plant on Dryden Road had its own evacuation at about 11 a.m. that day. Messages were left with Moraine city officials Tuesday.

“We were out there for several hours,” Jung said. “We had to utilize multiple jurisdictions. We had to get (bomb-sniffing) dogs to come in from the county and Dayton International Airport … They had to come in and help us with clearing the building.”

Added Jung, “It doesn’t matter how juvenile it may appear on the surface or how generic a threat it may be, we’re going to take every one of them seriously and we’re going to investigate them thoroughly.”

Of the DMAX threat, he said: “We’re going to obviously look into something like that, but on the surface right now, we don’t believe that they are related, as far as our person of interest.”

General Motors is the 60 percent owner of the DMAX plant, with Isuzu.

“It’s an ongoing investigation and we cannot get into the details,” GM spokeswoman Mary Ann Brown said Tuesday.

A spokesman for Tenneco said the plant was able to open normally for a second shift on Friday at 3 p.m., and he wasn’t certain how much work first shift was able to do before the evacuation.

He declined to say what the financial impact on the company was.

“We’re cooperating with police and we have been from the beginning,” said the spokesman, Mike Alzamora.

Dave Hicks, Moraine city manager, said the DMAX incident is under investigation.

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