Man Cut Cables, Knocked Out Service In Morrisville: Police

FALLS TOWNSHIP, PA — A man was arrested early Saturday morning after police say he intentionally cut fiber optic cables, knocking out internet and phone service in the Morrisville area.

At about 12:20 a.m., a Comcast technician alerted Falls Township Police to a situation in the area of Tyburn Road and Woolston Drive. The employee, a field maintenance supervisor, said he'd seen a dark-colored pickup truck with hardware and other tools in it alongside the road and a man near a nearby railroad embankment.

Shortly after he saw the man, the Comcast worker said, he was alerted to multiple outages in the Morrisville area.

Police say he realized that the area where he'd seen the man was where the outages were happening. He said he'd seen several fiber optic cables running from an overhead railroad bridge to a buried junction there. He later found that those cables had been cut.

When the Comcast employee asked the man about the cables, the man left the area, police say.

Later, police found the pickup truck at a nearby 7-Eleven. In it, they say, was a black cylinder used to house cables and several lengths of fiber optic cable. Officers saw bolt cutters on the passenger side of the pickup, police said.

The owner of the truck was identified as 61-year-old Kenneth A. Benjamin. He was arrested and charged with theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property and criminal mischief.