ST. GEORGE — A St. George man is in jail following an alarm activation at a sewage facility in Washington City and a St. George bomb threat he reportedly triggered in order to distract police.
According to charging documents filed in 5th District Court, responding officers were advised shortly after 5 a.m. Sunday that a man had allegedly broken into the pump station and might have fled from area on foot.
Officers were dispatched to Coral Canyon Boulevard and Telegraph Street on a report of a break-in at the sewage pump station in Washington City.
When they arrived, the suspect was gone and a canvass of the area ensued. Meanwhile, the reporting party at the sewage plant told investigators he responded to the plant after receiving an alarm activation and discovered there was an individual barricaded in one of the back rooms of the plant. The suspect reportedly secured the door with a piece of wire to prevent anyone from entering.
The caller also said he had found various pieces of equipment with the wires severed.
After circulating the area for more than an hour, officers found a man who matched the description of the suspect hiding in some bushes approximately 200 yards from the plant. The suspect was later identified as 30-year-old Brenton McCade Young.
Through a background check, officers learned that Young had an active felony warrant for his arrest. The report also states that officers were advised by emergency dispatch that Young was suspected of calling in a bomb threat shortly before 6 a.m. that same morning indicating there was a bomb at one of the high schools in St. George.
Officers also suspected that the bomb threat call was connected to the search that ensued following the break-in — “likely to get officers to stop looking for him,” the officer noted in the report.
The suspect told police he was in the plant “only trying to get out of the cold, and said he cut the wires to a fan located in the room the caller found him barricaded in later.
The suspect was arrested and during a search, officers reportedly found suspected heroin and methamphetamine, along with paraphernalia. They also recovered a cell phone that had the same phone number as one that was recorded by emergency dispatch when the alleged bomb threat was called in.
The report also states that when the officer dialed the number, the suspect’s cell phone began to ring.
Young was then transported to Purgatory Correctional Facility and booked into jail facing one count of threat of terrorism-hoax-weapon of mass destruction, a second-degree felony, as well as five misdemeanor drug and criminal trespass charges.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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