Earlier this year the city of Boston was almost destroyed by terrorists who hung electronic lighting boards around the city in guerrilla advertising campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force. As with most terrorist bombs, they were made of circuit boards with lights attached in the shape of a cartoon character flipping the bird. Police shut down bridges and closed part of the Charles River. Eventually the two terrorists were arrested and charged with placing hoax devices and disorderly conduct. In May the state dropped charges after the two served 140 hours of community services and apologized.
Now the city of Montrose, New York in Westchester County has decided it wants in on the idiotic response to nothing game.
It is senior prank time and the seniors at Hendrick Hudson High School came up with a fantastic plan. They bought 150 alarm clocks that were shaped like houses or butterflies. They wrapped the clocks in duct tape so teachers could not shut them off and set them for 9:15 am. When the clocks went off all the seniors were going to stand up and march out of school.
Using a stolen key, they broke into the school the night before and put the clock inside. But the clocks were discovered before the students arrived at school in the morning. Police were called in to investigate. Then the state troopers arrived with bomb sniffing dogs. Obviously, no bombs were found.
In cases like this, usually the students arent allowed to walk during graduation and possibly some community service is ordered by the court for breaking into the school. But not in Montrose, where they are cracking down on senior pranks.
Officials filed felony charges of placing a false bomb against the 19 students identified as being in the school during the break-in. The lead headline in the local paper read: "19 face charges in bomb prank."
Wha? Great idea. A stupid prank gone wrong should be punished by ruining the lives of 19 teenagers. Well done, Mr. District Attorney.
The students never thought the alarm clocks would be mistaken for bombs because they are all TEENAGERS IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
"It never crossed anyone's mind that this could be taken that way," said Alex Kane, a senior who said he contributed $1 to the clock fund.
Sophomore Grace Bleiweis explained what the seniors will have to tell their cellmates, just before they are raped in prison.
"You say it out loud: What did they do? Well, they put clocks in the school."
It's really no different than planting fake bombs, if you don't think about it.
The world is so full of stupidity, I wonder how we've survived as a species as long as we have. I wonder if we could get the DA's e-mail address and flood him with e-mails calling him a douche.
At that point, yer already in trouble for it, might as well go back and blow the fucking thing up.
Student said "We never even thought about blowing the place up until they gave us the idea and we thought, yeah that's a much cooler prank than silly walk outs... cheaper too".
I read the full article, but I can't find how much time they may have to serve. Since it's federal, I'm guessing they're not likely to get a slap on the wrist.
Hopefully sentencing will be lenient. It was stupid to break into the school, but it's also kind of alarming that the school didn't think to do anything about a key that had been missing for a year...
They should have just brought the clocks in with them. Probably would have had the same outcome, though.
I don't think their sentencing will be that harsh, and if it is, that's a little ridiculous.
But for 19 kids to break into a school and place objects wrapped in duct tape all over the place and not even *think,* during the current climate of our country, that they could be misconstrued as bombs... well.. those kids are just dumb.
Ya I guess designating a predetermined time. Then looking at the wall clock or even better, using a wrist watch and then going to the party and getting wasted and laid would have been sooo boring.
Wendy said:
I don't think their sentencing will be that harsh, and if it is, that's a little ridiculous.
But for 19 kids to break into a school and place objects wrapped in duct tape all over the place and not even *think,* during the current climate of our country, that they could be misconstrued as bombs... well.. those kids are just dumb.
Yes, but the law is supposed to take into account intent in a case where you just randomly classify objects as illegal.
Obviously, they did not intend for people to think the clocks were bombs, so they should not be thrown in jail for other people jumping to conclusions.
What next, you get a felony charge for forgetting your backpack on the subway?
Yeah, they might make a big hullabaloo, call the bomb squad. But you shouldn't go to jail for an actual mistake with zero malicious intent.
Literally anything could be considered "suspicious" it is completely discretionary and indefinable.
They obviously didn't hide them well enough... and so much effort put behind a prank that could have been duplicated easily enough with the fire alarm.
This raises a question, actually: do stupid cities produce stupid seniors?
Wasn't this in one of those teen movies? How classic is it that they broke in using a stolen key? I think that the ones that should be in trouble are the school administrators for not having proper security procedures.
Wendy said:
I don't think their sentencing will be that harsh, and if it is, that's a little ridiculous.
But for 19 kids to break into a school and place objects wrapped in duct tape all over the place and not even *think,* during the current climate of our country, that they could be misconstrued as bombs... well.. those kids are just dumb.
Miscontrued is fine but once they unwrap the packages and find nothing but a bunch of alarm clocks, they should calm down and let the kids go.
benhasglasses said:
crap, boston loves being number one. damn, what are we going to do to one up this?
For senior prank my year, a few students scaled the school and dropped several live chickens into the courtyard in the middle of the school. The next morning, school administrators had to chase them around the school to catch each one. The principal and faculty, though worried the students were actually able to pull it off, thought it was quite amusing. The principal didn't feel he could allow the kids no "punishment," so they had to write an essay; I believe of 500 words.
FearTheReaper
NEWSWIRE
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JUN 17, 2007 04:29 PM