A civil employee of the United States Department was accused of falsely informing an active shooter in a New Jersey military base on Tuesday morning, a hoax that allegedly led “Bond Trauma” with his colleagues, according to a criminal complaint.
On Tuesday, the official Facebook page of the McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst joint base outside Trenton reported that the base was locked due to an active shooter. Approximately an hour later, the blockade got up, and the authorities later said the initial reports were unfounded.
According to the criminal complaint, presented at the United States District Court in New Jersey, the civilian employee, Malika Brittingham, sent a text message to a nameless person around 10:15 am on Tuesday, who allegedly listened to five to six shots and that she, along with her colleagues, hid in a closet.
Joint base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst near Trenton, NJ
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Believing that his statement is true, the person who sent a text message called the Base Defense Operations Center and 911, transmitting what Brittingham supposedly said and leads to a notification of active shooters to the entire workforce of the base, according to the complaint.
Later, when the authorities determined that, in fact, there was no active shooter, they interviewed Brittingham, who initially told the researchers that he only sent the text message about the shooting after he received the emergency notification, according to the complaint.
Subsequently, the authorities reviewed the time of calls to both the Base Defense Operations Center and 911 and at the time of emergency notification and “showed that this statement was not true,” the complaint declared.
At that time, Brittingham admitted to having invented the active threat of the shooter, according to the complaint.
Britingham “explained that she carried out this deception because her co -workers had condemned her with ostracism and hoped that her shared experience in response to an active shooter would allow them ‘Bond Trauma’, according to the complaint.
The interim prosecutor of the United States for the New Jersey district, Alina Haba, said that the alleged behavior of the employee will not be tolerated.
“This type of fool and interruption of fear will not be tolerated in my state,” said Haba in a mail In X. “After all that this country has passed, especially in the light of current events, I will make sure to tear down the hammer of the law for anyone declared guilty of creating unnecessary panic and undermine public trust.”
There was no contact information for Brittingham immediately available, and it wasn’t clear if he had a lawyer
