Posted on 05/01/2014 2:41:56 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
More than 60 members of Teaneck High School’s senior class were arrested Thursday morning after a prank that police said involved urinating in the hallways of the high school, smearing Vaseline on doors, flipping desks and littering the school with balloons and other debris.
The students entered the school in the middle of the night and broke chairs and desks, scrawled graffiti and Vaseline on the doors and urinated, Acting Police Chief Robert Carney said at a press conference this morning.
Tariq Zehawi / staff photographer Teaneck High school students are brought to Municipal Court in handcuffs Thursday morning. WCBSTV
Police on the scene making the arrests in this photo made from video. Carney said that of the 62 arrested, 38 are juveniles. All have been charged with criminal mischief and burglary, and the juveniles have been turned over to their parents.
“To go into a school and damage a school, that’s not a prank. That’s criminal mischief,” Carney said.
One adult student said there were at least 100 students involved in the prank; she said she entered the school about 1 a.m. through an unlocked door and was in the building for about an hour before police arrived. She said the students have been planning the prank for about a month. “It was never supposed to get out of hand the way it did,” she said.
The adult students were handcuffed and brought over by van from the police station to the municipal court on the other side of the complex. Their handcuffs were taken off when they appeared before Municipal Court Judge James E. Young Jr.
Young told the students that the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office will decide whether to indict them on the burglary and criminal mischief charges or refer the cases back to municipal court where less serious charges are considered. They were all released.
“They are all good kids,” one mother said as she left the courtroom. “My kid’s going to an Ivy League school,” a father added.
None of the parents would identify themselves, and they made repeated complaints about the overwhelming presence of television crews, reporters and photographers.
“I am just angry right now,” said another woman, who sat in the spectator session of the courtroom. “These students have rights. They should be able to say whether they want to be recorded or not.”
Tristan Anderson, 17, a junior at the school who knows many of the arrested students, said the students made a mistake. “This does not reflect on Teaneck High School,” he said. “These are good kids, passionate about what they do.”
The school district “is considering the consequences it will impose on the students implicated,” Superintendent Barbara Pinsak said in a written statement that she read aloud at the press conference. She said the school has been cleaned up and “teaching continues as we speak.”
Consequences for the students who participated in the prank could be discussed at the Board of Education's meeting on Wednesday, said Gervonn Rice, the board's vice president, who added that the district officials were still gathering information.
"We have great kids, but we feel they made a bad choice and got caught up in the moment," Rice told The Record.
Police, who responded to a burglary alarm at 2:11 a.m., saw “numerous individuals” through the windows and several fleeing from the school when they arrived, Police Sgt. John Garland said.
“It is possible that a few got away but the majority were caught,” Garland said.
The Bergen County Sheriff’s Office searched the school with a K-9 dog that detected a scent behind a classroom door. This led to the discovery of eight students hiding in that classroom, said David Martinez, public information officer for the sheriff’s office.
Students told police they were involved in a senior prank. Some students were scared though others were “laughing and joking among themselves” before they realized the severity of the situation, Garland said.
Acting Chief Carney said that Teaneck High School students do not usually engage in pranks of this magnitude. The last time there was a prank inside the school was “well over ten years ago,” he said.
Maryann Sharpe said her grandson, a ninth grader who she was dropping off at school this morning, knew about the prank before it happened "but he didn't know it would be taken to this level." She said the prank shows a "total disregard" for the school and other students.
Several local agencies responded, including the Bergen County Police Department and police departments from Fort Lee, Palisades Park, Hackensack, Bergenfield, Cresskill, Ridgefield, Ridgefield Park, Bogota, Dumont, Englewood, New Milford, Glen Rock, Paramus, Englewood Cliffs and the Palisades Interstate Parkway.
“urinating in the hallways”
No way that can be called a prank.
“These students have rights. They should be able to say whether they want to be recorded or not.”
Given that attitude, it’s no surprise the “youths” are irresponsible spoiled lawbreakers.
A school near mine’s seniors installed new Plexiglass panels on the inside of the doorjambs of the first floor classrooms.
“These are good kids, passionate about what they do.”
I bet every square foot got at least some urine.
Freegards
Instead of probation ( you know that’s what will happen), these little “darlings”, should not be allowed to graduate on stage, no prom, senior trips and they can spend their summer before Yale cleaning and repainting every inch of the school and pay for everything they broke.
““I am just angry right now,” said another woman, who sat in the spectator session of the courtroom. “These students have rights. They should be able to say whether they want to be recorded or not.” “
I went to high school in the 40s.
We didn’t even know what “rights” were. :-)
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“My kid’s going to an Ivy League school,” a father added.
Maybe. Maybe not.
The colleges reserve the right to withdraw the offer of admission, and often do when a prospective student is arrested, or found cheating. A kid at my daughter’s h.s. had his college offer w/d and was not allowed to walk with his class at graduation after he was found to have plagiarized a paper at the end of his senior year in a class he didn’t need to take, except to fill time. This dad has no idea how seriously this is taken by the colleges.
At my senior prom, some girl went nuts and killed a bunch of people, sat fires all over the place, all because she got a bucket of pig’s blood poured on her.
“My senior class was 1970 and some of the guys swiped a full sized fiberglass hereford bull from in front of the meat market and put it on the school roof. Not sure how they managed it, and never found out who was responsible.”
Some friends tried to do that in college. Swiped the bull off the top of a grocery and were going to put it on top of a women’s dorm on night.
A security guard caught them coming onto campus with it and said if it was back on top of the grocery when he left work in the morning (it was) as far as he was concerned it never happened.
A “right” is what you would have received from an angry father when he got the $$BILL$$ for your personal share of the cost of cleaning up your “joke”.
In 1947, my school, 6 juvenile defectives caused $1250 worth of damage. Judge took a pad and pencil, divided $1250 by 6, wrote down the figure and every family paid their kid’s share. Father’s salaries attached, property got liens, kids got a marvelous life lesson.
Afterward, they did become “Very good kids.”
Then, broke in and reprogrammed the computer that ran the chimes that played on the hour.
Programmed it to play the “Mickey Mouse” song, continuously starting at 7 am (until they turned it off).
Nothing damaged though, and pretty amazing. They figured out who the kid was (the only boy genius with a crazy streak) and threatened to not let him graduate. But he worked it out with them.
My junior year the seniors broke into one of the buildings, destroyed desks, furniture, etc. and then turned on all of the water and plugged the drains. I think they turned on the fire hoses too. Millions of dollars in damage as everything was flooded. What a bunch of idiots. I don't recall if they caught any of them, or what happened to them.
So of course my senior year it was forbidden to do anything. Which was fine by me - I wasn't into all of that stuff.
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. I know it was well outside school hours, but when a police department shows up at a school building because an alarm has been triggered and they arrive to find dozens of people running around and fleeing the building, I can see why they’d err on the side of caution here.
http://www.oredigger.net/news/8-news/2837-a-great-rivalry-mines-battles-denver-in-1919.html
Was trying to find a prank involving the stealing of the football team’s mascot (a donkey). Instead came across an even better one.
From 1919 involving dynamite, rifles with bayonets, and branding!
Wow! $1250.00 was HUGE money in 1947-—at least in my neighborhood.
No screaming about rights or fragile egos or tough times making the payments.
Fined. Paid. Lesson learned.
.
“Lets please not put a racial angle where one really doesn’t belong.”
Most of the students were black and Hispanic; Teaneck is one of the few sh!tholes in one of the wealthiest counties in the US. In the interviews some gave afterwards, it doesn’t appear a lot of learning was going on in Teaneck High School.
So, how is this any different from what they do during the day?
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