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In a social media post Tuesday night, Habba said the civilian
employee — who has not been named — was in custody for
“conveying false information regarding an active shooter at
Joint Base McGuire.”
That sprawling base, among the nation's largest military
installations, was placed under lockdown Tuesday morning.
A statement on the base's Facebook page urged all personnel to
shelter in place. The statement did not describe the nature of
the threat. The lockdown was lifted just before noon, a little
under an hour after it was announced.
Habba's statement did not elaborate on the employee's alleged
actions, but it described the person, in an all-caps statement,
as a “suspects in...today's active shooter hoax."
An e-mailed inquiry to the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey
was not immediately returned.
“This kind of senseless fear-mongering and disruption will not
be tolerated in my state,” Habba added. “After everything this
country has gone through, especially in light of current events,
I will be sure to bring down the hammer of the law for anyone
found guilty of creating unnecessary panic and undermining
public trust.”
The U.S. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst is one of the nation’s
largest military installations. It spans 42,000 acres (17,000
hectares) and combines Air Force, Army and Navy functions and
counts over 42,000 service members, relatives and civilian
employees.
The base is about 18 miles (29 kilometers) south of Trenton, the
state capital, and about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of
Philadelphia.
The incident unfolded Tuesday as U.S. military leaders were
gathered at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, where
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had summoned them from around the
world to hear him declare an end to “woke” culture in the armed
forces.
It comes after recent violence at military installations in
recent years.
Last month, an Army sergeant was charged with shooting five
fellow soldiers at a Georgia base. Other shootings have ranged
from individual disputes between service members to assaults on
bases to mass-casualty attacks, such as the 2009 shooting, by an
Army psychiatrist, that killed 13 people at Texas’ Ford Hood.
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