Two North Carolina students could get up to 25 months in prison for a senior prank involving alarm clocks which were mistaken for bombs.
18-year-old students Shannon Marie Farrell and Lekia Hall hid alarm clocks inside unused lockers at South Iredell High School and set them to go off at different times. According to the Statesville Record and Landmark, School Resource Officer Kerry Baker saw that the zip-ties on some of the school’s unused lockers had been broken and were now secured with locks. When staff members heard ticking sounds coming from inside the locker, they evacuated the school immediately and called in local law enforcement:
While the students and faculty waited in the football stadium, law enforcement officers from Troutman, the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office and the N.C. Highway Patrol swarmed the area. The Troutman Fire Department and Iredell EMS also responded to the school.
[Troutman Police Chief Matthew] Selves said a lot of resources were tied up for about two hours until a bomb-sniffing dog made a sweep through the school and word of the planned prank began to make its way to investigators.
Farrell and Hall have been charged with perpetrating a hoax by use of false bomb or other device in a public building, which is a felony charge. Law enforcement made clear that the prank was not harmless or funny, as it led to the evacuation of approximately 1,700 people and shut down the school unnecessarily. Surprisingly, Shannon Marie Farrell’s father knew about his daughter’s plans beforehand and thought it was “pretty funny”:
Dan Farrell, speaking near the school, said he received a call from his younger daughter Tuesday morning. He said she told him her sister was being questioned and the school had been evacuated.
He said he heard about the plans to bring alarm clocks to school several days ago. “I thought it was a pretty funny thing,” Farrell said.
Right now, those seniors that released 72,000 ladybugs into their high school are looking pretty tame by comparison.
Source: Statesville Record and Landmark