The call to police Monday came from inside the Ritz Ybor, the scene of a day-long death-metal band tour called Summer Slaughter.
A young woman had told a bartender she'd overheard two people saying a man armed with a gun and knife would start killing people during an upcoming set by the band JOB FOR A COWBOY.
More than a dozen officers sped to the Ybor City club on E Seventh Avenue around 6 p.m. as Job for a Cowboy took the stage and played a couple of songs.
Nearly 1,000 people were evacuated, and part of Seventh Avenue cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape, while police swept the building. Officers, who brought bomb-sniffing dogs, found nothing, said Lt. Barry Moskowitz.
Nearly two hours later, the concert resumed. A private security firm, Sentry Security, made pat-down searches of each patron who came back in the door.
Moskowitz said it was unclear if the report was a prank. But given the recent killings in a Colorado movie theater, he said, police could not take a chance.
The unexpected interlude sent into the early evening sunlight the black-shrouded concertgoers.
Read more at Tampabay.com.
