Librarian Charged in Bomb Threat : Crime: His UCI colleagues have asked the university not to pursue prosecution or fire him.

IRVINE —  A longtime UC Irvine librarian has been charged with one count of making a false bomb threat in telephone calls to the campus library earlier this month.

Now, as library cataloguer Donald L. Hixon faces arraignment May 3 on the misdemeanor charge, more than a third of his fellow workers have signed petitions asking the university not to pursue criminal prosecution or fire him.

“We urge the university to seek ways to settle this matter internally without pursuing it in the courts,” said the petition, which was signed by 59 of the library’s 180 employees and delivered to UCI Executive Vice Chancellor L. Dennis Smith.

“Concerned as we all are about public safety, we do not believe any public good is served by a trial or by incarcerating a basically decent person,” the petition read. “While false bomb threats are serious matters, no one was evacuated and no physical damage was done. If there is a time for the library and the university to act with compassion, it is now.”

Hixon is on paid leave pending an internal campus investigation of the incident, which could result in disciplinary action as serious as termination, university officials said.

UCI Police Chief Mike Michell said Hixon allegedly made three calls to the library information desk from his own library office within a 20-minute period on the afternoon of April 4.

When the first call came at 2:45 p.m., the caller said: “There’s a bomb in the building,” Michell said. The reference desk employee noticed the caller’s extension flash on the telephone computer screen, indicating the call had come from on campus.

In a second threat about 15 to 20 minutes later, the caller said: “You don’t believe me; there’s a bomb in the building,” Michell said. By the time of the third call--in which a man identified himself as “the bomb man” and added, “It’s all a joke”--campus police had traced the extension to Hixon and were on their way to his office on the second floor.

On the advice of his attorney, Hixon declined to discuss the charge against him in an interview Wednesday. The 48-year-old Garden Grove man said he has sought psychological counseling since his arrest. He also said there were only two calls, not three, as the police chief said.

The April 4 calls were among a flurry of false bomb threats received at the campus over about a 1 1/2-week period in early April, Michell said. Earlier the same day, a caller believed to be a disgruntled student made a bomb threat. The library was evacuated for more than an hour before police determined that no bomb existed. No one has been arrested in that incident, and Hixon is not suspected in the other calls received on campus. The library was not evacuated over the afternoon bomb threat, Michell said, because the call had come from within the building.

Michell said Hixon admitted making the calls after he was advised of his rights.

“When he waived his rights, he was asked if he made the calls,” the police chief said. “He said ‘Yes, I did it. . . . This was the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. It was stupid.’ ”

Initially, Hixon told officers he didn’t know why he had made the bomb threat, that he had no reason for his actions, Michell said. Later, however, he said the morning bomb threat incident led to his own call.

“He said the excitement created during the bomb threat which occurred in the morning was the catalyst,” Michell said.

Hixon has worked at the UCI library since 1967, specializing in collecting and cataloguing texts and research materials in the fine arts. He has consistently gotten good reviews and has been recommended for promotion, according to Daniel C. Tsang, a fellow librarian and union official who is representing Hixon in the administrative proceedings.

“I think that most librarians and library workers here feel that what he needs is help, not to lose his job,” said Tsang, who signed the petition.

Hixon remains hopeful that his good record will help him keep his job. “That’s my main concern: I want to get back to work,” he said. “I love my work. I love everybody I work with there.”