A Fairhope man was charged last week with interfering with a 911 dispatch call, and new court documents show a similar thing happened at the same apartment building a month earlier.
The residents of the apartment were the first to know and called the police.
On June 6, Trenton Lisak, 31, allegedly interfered with 911 dispatch calls from the Mobile Police Department, Fire Rescue, the sheriff and even the Metropolitan Jail in the downtown entertainment district. Police say Lissak carried out the well-planned attack from an apartment in downtown Mobile.
"People with these kinds of resources obviously cause a lot of concern," said Michael Kraus, a resident of the apartment building.
In a moment of life and death, this can be catastrophic
Officials at the Mobile County 911 Center told FOX10 News that detectives traced the disturbance to the 9th floor, where they found Lisak as well as the black market mobile jammer.
Now, new court documents show that a month ago, multiple tenants in the building complained that Wi-Fi and phones were not working.
Investigators said at the time that AT&T had gone to the apartment where Lissak was staying and told a tenant to stop interfering. After the disruption stopped, it began again on June 6. At that time detectives found the strongest signal jamming at the same door.
Kraus, who lives on a nearby floor, said the poor Wi-Fi signal affected his remote work for weeks
"Things are moving slowly, and I can see that there are issues like connectivity issues and interference," Krause said. "To me personally, it was very different, but after he left, or in this case, I guess arrested him, everything seemed to go back to normal." Since you told me it was on the 9th, that must explain a lot."
Court records show that Lissak is no stranger to the law. He was jailed for unrelated crimes, including a burglary in Baldwin County.
911 service director Charlie McNicol said Lissack's motive was unclear.
"He could have a variety of reasons, like he just likes to watch chaos, or he has mental issues, or unfortunately, he could be planning a major event and want to ensure public safety by interfering with communications," McNicol said.
Other residents told FOX10 News reporter Lacey Beasley that they saw SWAT officers enter the building the day Lisak was arrested.
But employees at the apartment said he did not live there.