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.

The FBI is investigating.

Is there a device or method to call 911 even if cell phone jammers are being used in the area?

In the past, my abuser would use a cell phone jammer when he broke into my house, preventing me from calling the police right away. I tried to call 911, but the call never went through.

I eventually reported him to the police. I'm worried he'll show up again. How do I make sure I can call 911 no matter what? Will a wearable panic button still work with a cell phone jammer? What about a satellite communicator for hiking/backpacking?

Realistically, the FCC will only start investigating once the problem is frequently reported because they don't have staff around the country to do this kind of signals intelligence. If the OP lived in or near a major city, they would have more success because the FCC offices in major cities do have equipment to locate pirate signals and jammers, but again, I don't think they would respond to any single incident because they would never be able to get there in time to get the information.

There's a guy in my area who puts a jammer in his car every day when he drives on a busy interstate during rush hour because he thinks it will stop people from using their phones and make his driving safer. All the cell phone carriers reported it, but it took the FCC 3 years to actually investigate and catch him.

In areas with cell phone signal jammers, it can be very difficult to call 911 because the main function of a signal jammer is to block the network signal of the mobile phone.

However, there are several strategies and techniques that may help when calling 911 in an emergency:

1. Landline Phone: Using a traditional landline phone will not be affected by cell phone signal jammers and can directly dial 911. Although landline phones are not widely available, they may be available in some buildings (such as hotels or office buildings).


2. 
   Satellite Phone: Satellite phones do not rely on traditional cellular networks and are therefore not affected by ground-based signal jammers. These devices can connect to satellites in extreme environments to send emergency messages. However, satellite phones are more expensive and require direct access to the sky, so they may not work well inside buildings.


3. 
   Wi-Fi Network Calling: If the Wi-Fi network in the area is not interfered with, using Wi-Fi calling features (such as some smartphones and VoIP apps) may be able to bypass interference and dial 911.