Trenton man faces charges in 'alien invasion' school threat
HAMILTON — A Trenton man is facing charges of false public alarm after he allegedly tried to call in an alien invasion to the county’s special services school district twice in nine days, police said.
Darren Morris, 31, has no obvious connection to the school for disabled and troubled youths and was not a student there, Capt. James Stevens said today.
It was unclear why Morris made phone calls on Feb. 25 and March 6 on a main line an administrator wound up answering.
In the calls, Morris said he was being followed by aliens, that they had taken people, and they were coming to abduct more, Stevens said.
“And he was warning the school that there were ‘robot aliens,’” Stevens said.
The school called police following both the first call at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 25 and again around 7:30 a.m. March 6. At neither point was the school evacuated or put on lockdown, but officials wanted the calls reported.
“And no one at the school wanted to take the chance,” Stevens said.
“There was definitely some concern when he called a second time,” Stevens added.
The school’s caller ID recorded the number Morris was using on the second call, and Detective Len Gadsby traced it to a pay phone at the Trenton train station. NJ Transit police pulled video camera footage that identified Morris as a suspect, and he was arrested at the station Saturday morning.
The single charge of false public alarm is an indictable offense, Stevens said, and Morris is being held at the county workhouse in lieu of $5,000 bail.
Mercer County spokeswoman Julie Willmot confirmed school officials received two calls within weeks of each other.
“Both calls were nonspecific and noncredible,” she said.
Staff writer Nicole Mulvaney contributed to this report.
There were a lot more gnomes about then, of course.
