A Bristol Township man has been charged with burglary and related offenses after he was allegedly located under a closed school.
Bristol Township police were called shortly before 1 a.m. Wednesday for an active alarm set off by interior motion detectors at the closed Benjamin Franklin School on Mill Creek Road in Levittown.
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A keyholder was already at the school, which recently served as the Bristol Township School District’s administrative offices and is expected to converted into a middle school, and provided officers access to the building. An exterior search of the building found no problems.
Officers searched the hallways of the building and began hearing a metal clanging noise coming from a utility room.
In the utility room, officers spotted a person entering a hatch in the floor. The hatch was surrounded by muddy footprints and dozens of cut copper pipes, police said.
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The school had a series of utility tunnels under the building.
Officers entered the hatch and made contact with Paul J. Hager, 37, of the township’s Croydon section. He was detained, police said.
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Hager was found to have electric saw replacement blades and a used syringe on him. A toolbag with an electric saw was found near the cut copper pipes in the utility room, police said.
Hager reportedly told officers he did not have permission to be inside the school district-owned building.
Hager was charged with burglary, criminal trespassing, possession of an instrument of crime, theft, receiving stolen property, possession of a controlled substance, and use/possession of drug paraphernalia. He was arraigned at 9 a.m. Thursday by District Judge Robert Wagner and sent to the county lockup on 10 percent of $150,000 bail.
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