By Lori Ehde
A threatening call to the a local crisis hotline had local banks reviewing their security procedures Tuesday afternoon.
At 6:45 a.m. a Luverne man called the crisis hotline through Southwestern Mental Health Center threatening ill will to an unspecified banking institution.
As a precaution, crisis line operators passed the threat along to the Rock County Sheriff's Department, which in turn alerted local banks.
Individual bank responses varied from locking doors and letting customers in one by one to merely putting employees on alert.
According to Mike Engesser of First Farmers & Merchants Bank, his staff used the threat as a good reason to run a security drill.
At Minnwest Bank, Greg Burger said employees were told if the individual entered the bank, they were to be on alert for threatening behavior.
Burger said he didn't feel he or his employees were in real danger, because law enforcement who had spoken with the man appeared to have the situation in hand.
"They nipped it right out of the chute," Burger said.