Firefighter charged with making false reports
A Danville volunteer firefighter has been charged with making false reports over the last three months.
On June 19, the Morgan County Central Dispatch center received a report of a structure fire near Neel School Road. The call was determined to be false and was the first of numerous false reports.
Dispatch administrators determined that the rash of false reports were related and notified Decatur Police on Sept. 9.
Police then determined that 19-year-old Clint Jason McAbee of Danville had called in almost all of the false reports. McAbee had been a volunteer firefighter with the Punkin Center Volunteer Fire Department for about seven months. McAbee responded with the department to all of the calls that he made. On Friday, McAbee was arrested and charged with five counts of rendering a false alarm, a Class A misdemeanor. He was held in the Decatur City Jail in lieu of a $2,500 bond.
A 17-year old juvenile who had served four months with the same fire department had also placed at least one of the false calls for service. That suspect is being charged in Morgan County Juvenile Court.
