Two local Walmart employees and a resident were arrested and charged with terroristic threats after reportedly being involved in two separate bomb threats that caused an evacuation of the Covington Walmart on Sept. 6 and 9.

Capt. Ken Malcom with the Covington Police Department said in a press release an unknown person called in two separate bomb threats to a Covington area Walmart stating that there was a bomb in the building and the store needed to be evacuated. Covington police responded to each call and determined they both were hoaxes.

Malcom said the Criminal Investigation Division, led by Capt. Phillip Bradford, Det. Brent Fuesting and Det. Jeff Bruno, then conducted a nearly month-long investigation to determine who were involved with the threats.

Police then identified Latrell Pitts of Green Street, as the caller and later discovered Chakedra Blocker of Beaver Dam Road, and Brianna Black of Settlers Grove Road were also involved in the threats.

Malcom said Blocker and Black anticipated Walmart would close the store and send their employees home in the event a bomb threat was made during their working hours. He said the pair convinced Pitts to call in to the store and make the threats at the Covington Walmart on two separate occasions. Blocker and Black would in turn give Pitts cash payments for making the threats.

After further investigating the case, police determined that the trio was also responsible for making a similar threat to the Conyers Walmart earlier this month. He said Pitts confessed to being involved with those threats during an interview. Malcom said the three made threats at the Conyers store in order to shoplift beer during the evacuation.

The three were arrested and charged with two counts of terroristic threats after they confessed to police they were responsible for the bomb threats at Walmart, according to the press release.