High School Prank Goes Wrong

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

Opinions, ATS. Is this vandalism instead of a harmless prank? Should the students have been arrested?

Personally, I think each and every one of our "pranksters" should have had to clean the mess up. LOL! I'm at a loss for words here.

J

62 Students Arrested After Senior Prank

More than 60 students were arrested at Teaneck High School Thursday after police said they broke into the school for a senior class prank, greased doorknobs with Vaseline and urinated in the hallways.

...“We blew up balloons, moved desks around, and stringed up lockers together, and next thing you know police are everywhere,” students Bryan Cruz and John Luis told CBS 2′s Kathryn Brown.

When officers arrived, they also found desks and chairs flipped over, graffiti on the walls, silly string on the floor and hot dogs taped to lockers, police said.

“Numerous desks, chairs were dragged out into the hallways, you couldn’t make it through some of the hallways,” said Acting Police Chief Robert Carney. “The urine all over the hallways, the grease that was applied to the doors, there was a large amount of it.”

...Police said students told officers it was all a senior prank, which they said is an annual tradition at the high school.

“I know he thought it was fun and games, but it’s real life,” Carlos Garrison, a parent of one of the students, told CBS 2′s Weijia Jiang. “It’s not fun and games.”

Another parent told 1010 WINS’ Al Jones she hopes the school also takes action. “It’s just totally disrespectful. And the ones that did it, the seniors, they probably shouldn’t be able to graduate,” she said.

But some parents said the prank wasn’t that bad.
“It’s a yearly prank that’s done,” said parent Pat D’onofrio. “The police should not have arrested these kids.”

Police said the damage was widespread but not permanent. The school opened in time for the morning bell Thursday.

I don't know if this is a worldwide or just an American thing but back in my Australian high school days we played stupid pranks all the time at school and if it went too far it was dealt with 'in-house' so to speak.

Lunchtime/afternoon detentions, cleanup duty, and in the worst cases expulsion from the school were the usual punishments - I don't recall the calling of police as ever having been an option.

I dunno, maybe I'm just showing my age

'Pranks" need to take into account how they affect others, and if they present any danger to others and property.

Urine on the floors; grease on the walls...that goes beyond humor and becomes vandalism.
At there age level, if they don't understand that vandalism costs money, is illegal and has consequences, then they need to learn the hard way. And mom and dad get an "F" in parenting.

a reply to: Kryties

Oh goodness, Kryties, the pranks and goings-on in my high school..lol

I do think urinating in the halls was beyond nasty, but I'm not sure that silly-string and wieners calls for a police presence (of several precincts).

I left a good chunk of the report out, so you may want to read the linked article.

J

Tying lockers together, moving desks, vasaline on the door knobs. Those are pranks.

Breaking in and urinating on the floor are vandalism.

originally posted by: nugget1
'Pranks" need to take into account how they affect others, and if they present any danger to others and property.

Urine on the floors; grease on the walls...that goes beyond humor and becomes vandalism.
At there age level, if they don't understand that vandalism costs money, is illegal and has consequences, then they need to learn the hard way. And mom and dad get an "F" in parenting.

While I'm inclined to agree, nugget, I can't help but remember some of my teachers getting a nasty surprise when they sat upon a tack placed in their chair. No one was arrested, but the incident wasn't smiled upon either.

As for Mom and Dad, an old adage comes to mind: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." We raise our children with the best ethics we can (at least, most of us do), but after a certain age, those children will act the way they want to. We can only hope for the best.

Thanks for the comment!

J

originally posted by: thisguyrighthere
Tying lockers together, moving desks, vasaline on the door knobs. Those are pranks.

Breaking in and urinating on the floor are vandalism.

Urinating on the floor is disgusting (unless you're just a wee one)!

There were some there who had already graduated, and I wonder if they instigated the urinating or performed the act themselves.

Thanks for dropping by, thisguy

J

originally posted by: LadyJae

I do think urinating in the halls was beyond nasty

Oh I completely agree, not even I would have done that back in the day. For that, my school would have suspended or expelled the students involved.

Calling the police, though, is a whole new level that was never dreamed about in my day.

P.S. I'm only 35, I'm not talking half a century ago or anything

originally posted by: Kryties

Oh I completely agree, not even I would have done that back in the day. For that, my school would have suspended or expelled the students involved.

Calling the police, though, is a whole new level that was never dreamed about in my day.

P.S. I'm only 35, I'm not talking half a century ago or anything

ummm, welll, we're not going to talk about how long ago I was in high school

The police showed up because an alarm was triggered when the students entered the building

The security alarm inside the school tipped off police, and authorities watched the destruction happening on surveillance video, CBS 2′s Jessica Schneider reported.

“They told us they checked several cameras in the station — yeah we never knew that,” Cruz and Luis said.

Now, was it naivety, stupidity, or the excitement of what they were about to do that would make them not consider that??

I saw this article yesterday and I was actually quite perplexed. The article states that the "Senior Prank" was a tradition at that particular high school? Ummmm, having just graduated high school myself a few years ago; I participated in the senior prank at my own previous high school. We went in at night, rearranged some desks, saran wrapped a bunch of stuff together, stacked a pyramid of chairs in the gym, "TP'ed" the baseball fields, threw some playboy magazines about the place and that's about it. Granted there was nobody urinating in the hallways or doing anything feces related; but certainly nobody was arrested.

The student who personally gained entry and a few of his buddies who planned most of it got a couple of days of in school suspension.....but other than that the school was fine even had classes (albeit a bit delayed) the next morning. Students and staff alike cleaned up the mess, only took a couple hours.

Anyways here is the thing, this or something similar happens every single year at my old high school! Also, it happens every single year in all 10 high schools in my town.....Literally, every year haha no arrests ever came of it to my knowledge....Believe it or not, at least in my town many times the students would gain entry to the building not by breaking in but by swiping a staff member's id pass at the door. Usually a "Cool" teacher would GIVE their pass to a senior they trust to carry out the prank with class....The year my graduating class did it we had explicit permission from the Assistant priniciple hence no silent alarm....

Anyways, I thought this was commonplace everywhere in America for like decades now??? I suppose it is only in certain areas. My mother in the 1970's (same town different school) and her senior class planted corn in the football field so that it would begin sprouting right as the night football season started lmao.....

I would say the NJ police and school overreacted. Arrest the urinating parties perhaps, it's not hard to get high schoolers to rat on each other, other than that let the kids have some fun. Damn.

a reply to: LadyJae

Oh for crying out loud. Its a prank...and folks think they shouldnt graduate???

My senior year the offensive line carried the algebra teachers car into the band hall.

a reply to: LadyJae

Call me old-fashioned, but when I was growing up a properly pulled prank(wow alliteration) was something mildly startling or unexpected but with a funny twist that even the prankee could laugh about. Like filling your friends' shoes with corn starch, or sticking a piece of chalk in an eraser or my personal favorite, putting chalk dust in the shape of hands on a teacher's chair. I love(d) pulling pranks growing up.
This, however, is not a prank. Breaking into buildings is not a prank. Writing on walls is not a prank. Urinating on floors is not a prank. Those are all crimes, and as such, deserve punishment.
What's frightening is the kids/kids parents can't see the difference between criminal acts and harmless fun.

originally posted by: lightedhype

Anyways, I thought this was commonplace everywhere in America for like decades now???

Wasnt done at my high school during my time there or in the years since.

But my high school was essentially just a place to buy drugs and shoot at rival gang members so there wasnt a lot of that "school spirit" kind of stuff.

You did your time and you hoped you left with a clean record.

It sure seemed commonplace before I got there when my exposure to "high school" life came from TV shows like Saved by the Bell, 90210 and Parker Lewis.

The reality was quite different.

Last time I checked breaking and entering was against the law. So yes they should have been placed under arrest. Saying it was a prank is no excuse for breaking the law.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Did they break into the car and urinate on the seats?

a reply to: hogstooth

No, we did not.

Maybe i had it good, growing up in the country. Out here we try to give the cops as little to do as possible.

My year borrowed wildlife from some local farms and put them in the school last week of school. Was hilarious and fun at the time, and well worth the "punishment" of having to return the animals and help clean up the mess.

No way should they just NOT give out there diplomas, that is a life altering descion, grease on a door knob is a 5 minute clean up. the urinating is a bit much, probably caused by 2-3 people that took it to far.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I dunno they may have crossed the line with urination and grease.
They should have held their wee and used peanut butter instead.

That's more like a prank.

The students should have had to clean and repaint the walls, clean up their own mess, and apologize to the student body for their actions.

I've been hearing over and over on this site how "kids are kids and kids do dumb things". Well, these are kids, and they certainly did a dumb thing. My question is: was this dumb thing bad enough to put a negative mark on their future?

Now, don't get angry with me. Its an honest question asked with true curiosity and not an intent to inflame.

J