Free Republic

BOSTON — State officials are investigating complaints that at least two teenagers were given electric shock treatments at a residential center for people with special needs because someone telephoned fake orders to the staff. Initial investigations showed that a former student at the Judge Rotenberg Education Center called in the orders on Aug. 26, Cindy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Early Education and Care, said Monday. Center officials reported the incident the following day, she said. "There is still an ongoing criminal investigation," said the school's senior counsel, Ernest Corrigan. "We are working very closely with investigators."...

MARIETTA, Ga. -- A coach faces charges after police said he led a group of students on a lewd Christmas prank in Marietta. Police said John Hayes, 46, loaded several middle schoolers into the back of his pickup truck, and drove them around after dark as they damaged Christmas displays. The group even made several homeowners’ displays X-rated, police said, including placing reindeer in sexual positions. A homeowner who did not want to be identified said he followed Hayes’ pickup truck and confronted him. “I said ‘Are you crazy?’ and he said, ‘It's just a bit of fun,’” the homeowner...

Hudson -- Who shot the Clocktower mouse? That was the question on the minds of Hudson police and many residents who woke up Dec. 5 to find an arrow sticking out of the mouse's head. Barb O'Connor, who works for Realty One on North Main Street, said she got an early morning call from a family member telling her about the arrow in the head of the mouse that annually decorates the Clocktower across the street. "I couldn't believe it," said O'Connor. "Poor little guy. He had an arrow right in the back of his head." O'Connor said she called...

I prank, therefore I am Engineering students have pulled some amazing pranks over the years. But UBC's Golden Gate prank may have been the greatest everBy ERIN MILLAR -- Maclean'sAt about 3:40 a.m. on Feb. 5, 2001, a moving van stopped abruptly in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. Although it was still dark, witnesses said they saw around a dozen figures emerge and push a large object over the side of the bridge. They then reboarded the van, and sped away into the night. Nothing to see here. Move along. A couple of hours later, as the morning...

MELBOURNE, Australia - An Australian "prankster" barmaid who served a patron a shot of disinfectant has appeared in court over what her lawyers said was a "misguided" joke. Melbourne barmaid Emily Craig, 23, served a client a single 30-milliliter shot glass of Pine-O-Cleen disinfectant in March during a 6 a.m. drinking bout at Evolution Nightclub, causing him to become violently ill, the Melbourne Magistrates court was told. "This was a misguided joke at an ungodly hour," Craig's lawyer George Balot told the judge, according to reports Tuesday in local newspapers. -snip- The patron developed ulcers on his skin after drinking...

A HEARTLESS prank by two teenaged girls has devastated seven families who were made to believe their children had been seriously injured in car accidents. The two teens allegedly called the families at random in the state's southwest, telling parents their children were fighting for their lives in hospital. The two alleged pranksters, aged 18 and 16, reportedly posed as medical staff from local hospitals when they made the calls.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1774718/

On Aug. 31, 1987, Dave Bresnahan was the Michelangelo of potato sculpting. He sacrificed five fine tubers to the spud gods – death via peel – before settling on the correct shape. He drew red lines on the winner to simulate seams, only to see them erased by the potato's weeping. He wielded that peeler like a true artiste. Because in order to pull off the greatest prank in baseball history, Bresnahan needed to shape a potato like a baseball. "I went to Williamsport (Pa.) this past weekend to celebrate the anniversary," Bresnahan says today from his Arizona home, 20...

WASHINGTON — Karl Rove, your car is ready. White House pranksters wrapped Rove's Jaguar in plastic wrap on the private driveway next to the West Wing. Rove's car is easily recognizable because of its "I love Barack Obama" bumper sticker and the twin stuffed-animal eagles on the trunk. Oh, and there's a stuffed-animal elephant on the hood. Rove, the top White House political strategist who recently announced his resignation, left his car on the driveway while visiting Texas and traveling with President Bush. He was due back in Washington Wednesday evening.

Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's car, Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007, after someone wrapped the car in plastic wrap and put eagles and stickers, including one with I love Obama on it. The car was parked on White House grounds and the prank is a goodbye gift of sorts for Rove, who is retiring in two days. . (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds

Boy, 12, charged with assault after throwing cocktail sausage in 'Just William' prank How the law made a meal out of a boy's childish prank By JAYA NARAIN - More by this author » Last updated at 21:50pm on 22nd August 2007 Food for thought: The boy of 12 contemplates all the stress caused by throwing a sausage A 12-year-old boy has been brought before the courts for throwing a cocktail sausage at a neighbour District Judge Tim Devas compared the incident to a story from boys' adventure book Just William. The case has been brought before Manchester City...

Police warn of prank on drive-through workers Police are urging people who work in drive-through windows at fast-food restaurants to be wary of a fast-growing, Internet-fueled prank that involves customers who yell "Fire in the hole," then throw drinks into the faces of workers before driving off hooting and laughing. In many cases, the stunts appear to be recorded -- usually on cell phone cameras -- so they can be posted at video-sharing sites like YouTube and Ebaumsworld, where hundreds of such clips are can be viewed. The prank appeared to be occurring in other parts of the country until...

ENCINITAS – The statue of a male surfer recently unveiled in Cardiff is having one rugged ride. First came harsh comments. Then, over the weekend, came the fashion makeover. “I think it was tacky,” Jim Clark, president of the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce, said of the vandalism. Someone dressed the surfer in a pleated pink skirt, bikini top and lucha libre mask. Passers-by noticed the getup Sunday morning. By Sunday afternoon, the statue was back to normal. The $120,000 statue, “Magic Carpet Ride,” was created to celebrate Cardiff's surfing legacy. Commissioned by the Cardiff Botanical Society, the statue stands along...

Teens try to burn cross on man's lawn Sara Leaming Staff writer Several teenagers were caught by an Elk, Wash., resident Sunday while trying to burn a cross in his front yard, the Spokane County Sheriff's Office said. The man heard a noise outside his home Sunday morning in the 39000 block of North Hardesty Road and looked outside to see a cross on his front lawn, said sheriff's spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan. The man ran outside and saw three teenagers riding away from his home on bicycles, and two more teenagers approaching, Reagan said. The resident stopped the two...

Awakened by a loud bang and the ring of their doorbell, an interracial couple peered out the front window of their Long Island home at 3 a.m. yesterday and saw a cross burning on the front lawn. They said they immediately called the Suffolk County police, but by the time officers arrived, rain had doused the fire. The police removed the cross, which was three feet tall and made from the slats of a picket fence. By yesterday afternoon, the only remaining trace was a charred circle of grass outside the building, a two-family house in the southwest corner of...

What? In Liberal, tolerant, inclusive, diversity-loving New York? I'd expect this in, say, Crawford, Texas. Awakened by a loud bang and the ring of their doorbell, an interracial couple peered out the front window of their Long Island home at 3 a.m. yesterday and saw a cross burning on the front lawn.

Couple Finds Crosses Burning Outside Trenton Home Detectives Await Return Of Evidence From Crime Lab TRENTON, Mich. -- A biracial couple that moved to a Trenton neighborhood two weeks ago received a harsh welcome this weekend, Local 4 reported. The man who lives at the home with his wife and 1-year-old daughter told the station that the family woke to find a cross burning outside their daughter's window two days in a row. "I thought it was a dream," he said. "I just actually couldn't believe that people would do something like that." Police caught two men leaving the area...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A St. Johns County man pleaded guilty to burning a cross in his own front yard in an effort to intimidate a black family that was considering buying a house in his Hastings neighborhood, according to WJXT-TV. Neal Chapman Coombs, 50, admitted to setting fire to a cross in January while a family was negotiating to purchase the house across the street. According to the plea agreement, when the black family came to inspect the house, he made a derogatory remark to one of the children, then poured something flammable on a cross and set it on...

CONROE, Texas -- A man was awarded a million dollar settlement after his co-worker put a noose around his neck and choked him in the company bathroom, officials told KPRC-TV in Houston on Tuesday. Charles Hickman worked at CCSI, Commercial Coating Services Inc., near Conroe in Montgomery County in 2002. He sued his former employer for racial discrimination and harassment after verbal harassment turned into physical abuse in one of the company's restrooms. Hickman said the harassment culminated in October 2002 when a white colleague placed a noose around his neck in a bathroom and began choking him while co-workers...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- James Jackson, a 26-year-old black employee of 180 Connect, was preparing for another day of installing cable, telephone and Internet service to residential customers of Cablevision in Nassau County, New York on December 7. When he walked to the fenced-off area to pick up equipment for the day's jobs he looked up and was shocked to see a vicious, racist symbol in his workplace. A noose was hanging in the fenced-off equipment area, visible to the dozens of installers, the majority of whom are black, but accessible only to his boss and an equipment manager, both...