A Memphis woman, Kelviona Townsend, has been charged with several felonies after she allegedly made a bomb threat to Shelby County’s women’s jail. Townsend, 23, facing charges of threatening to commit an act of mass violence, false reporting, and harassment, called Jail East’s release office last Thursday, October 30, at approximately 11:34 p.m., threatening “to blow up the facility if inmate releases did not begin by midnight,” the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office disclosed as reported by Action News 5.
An announcement by Chief Deputy Anthony Buckner, highlighted by WREG News, reinforced the gravity of such threats and the swift action taken by law enforcement stating “The swift action in this case underscores our commitment to protecting the safety of employees, inmates, and the public,” and Buckner further added, “We will not tolerate attempts to intimidate or endanger others through threats of mass violence.” Townsend, related to an inmate at the facility held on domestic assault charges, was apprehended by SCSO detectives and members of the Fugitive Apprehension Team yesterday, on the 2600 block of James Road. She now finds herself confined within the walls of the institution she is accused of having threatened to destroy.
According to FOX13 Memphis, Townsend’s unruly demand for the release of inmates was not only a perilous ultimatum but a crime, resulting in her arrest; she is now charged and held at the very institution her call targeted, and although this is not Townsend’s first interaction with the law—having been previously booked for misdemeanor marijuana possession in 2022, a case which was dropped and filed as “nolle prosequi”—it is the magnitude and severity of her alleged latest offense that has escalated the conservations around her and the facility’s security protocols…