Originally Posted by
Good Doctor HST
This week's sign that we live in a country of the credo: "We have nothing to fear, but not enough fear."
From ABC news:
OLEY, Pa. Feb 15, 2005 — A student apprehended on his high school roof in a gorilla mask was charged Tuesday with trespass and other crimes when his senior prank led to a school lockdown, officials said.
No one was injured and police found no weapons on suspect Matthew Pattison or inside Oley Valley High School in rural Berks County, state trooper Ray Albert said.
The 18-year-old Pattison a National Merit semifinalist with no school disciplinary record was charged with reckless endangerment, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and criminal trespassing.
He told police he donned a gorilla mask and gloves and climbed up to the cafeteria roof Tuesday morning in order to peer down into classroom windows, Oley Police Chief David A. White said in a statement.
The prank was foiled when school staff saw someone donning the mask in the parking lot and scaling a wall and called authorities, who sent officers, a state police helicopter and a bomb squad.
According to police, Pattison said he wore the disguise and covered his license plate in the school parking lot so he could not be identified on school surveillance cameras.
The school, which sits just off of Main Street in Oley, has about 660 students.
School board member Robert Moore said his daughter, a sophomore, called him on a cell phone Tuesday morning to say police were at the school and students were under a lockdown. She was not overly alarmed, Moore said.
"In today's day and age, that's a precautionary measure," Moore said.
No one answered Tuesday at a home believed to be Pattison's, and it was not immediately clear if he had been released.
This was a big issue in the local newspapers where I live. People feel that the right sentencing and precautions were taken, because, and they all said the exact same two things: Columbine and 9/11... their reference points. Just goes to show that the public in Bumfuck Pennsyltucky can be led to fear terrorists and bombs; it reminded me of the one scene in Fahrenheit 9/11 where that little shittown in Virginia was put on high alert.... and the citizens were afraid of anyone that looked suspicious, even people they knew.
The Grand Royal Holy Shepard and the Bewildered Herd win again; the days of innocence are gone. Never to return. Beware Merry Pranksters..... you will be shot on sight.