Ethan Aron, 39, of St. Louis County has been charged with two felonies for allegedly making threats against Six Flags in Eureka, as well as against the city of Eureka, according to court documents.
The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged him Thursday (Nov. 29) with two counts of making a terrorist threat in the second degree, and a $10,000 bond has been set. As of this morning (Nov. 30), he had not been taken into custody, a spokesman for St. Louis County Jail said.
In late October, Aron allegedly made calls and sent text messages to Six Flags threatening a “shootout” at the amusement park, and he called Eureka City Hall threatening to kill several people in the building, a probable-cause statement said.
Aron made the threats over a three-day period, from Oct. 27 to Oct. 29, calling Six Flags more than 30 times and the city more than 10 times. He allegedly “acknowledged his involvement in the crime,” the report said.
Six Flags employees told Eureka Police that on Oct. 27, the amusement park office received numerous phone calls from various phone numbers throughout the day, but every time an employee answered the call no one was on the other line. The same thing occurred at Eureka City Hall throughout the day, according to the report.
At about 11:05 a.m. Oct. 27, a Six Flags employee sent a text message to one of the numbers that called in, and got a reply that people were going to go to the park to kill the person, and that the people knew the employee’s location and home address, the report said.
A second text message, coming from a different phone number, was sent to the employee’s phone that said, “Shootout at Six Flags St. Louis Oct. 28.” That message continued to be sent to the employee’s phone on Oct. 28, with each message coming from a different number, according to the report.
On Oct. 29, the Six Flags office got a call from someone with a low and raspy voice, who told an employee that “something is about to start” at the park, the report said.
During the same time period, Eureka City Hall received numerous calls with at least one message containing a threat to kill people in the building, a report said.
With the help of the St. Louis County Fusion Center, Eureka Police were able to track the cell phone believed to have been used to make the threatening comments to Aron’s home in the 800 block of Parma Drive in the Ballwin area, according to the report.
Police believe the threatening text messages and phone calls stem from an incident on Oct. 26, when Aron allegedly caused a disturbance at the amusement park and was left behind by a group he was with. Aron allegedly became angry and yelled at patrons before leaving the area, the report said.
Making terrorist threats is a class E felony punishable by up to four years in prison.