Mason prank triggers felony charges

Some might call it a prank that forced Mason [Ohio] schools to shut down last week, but county prosecutors weren’t laughing after charging three high school students with felonies Wednesday.

The three Mason High School boys, all sophomores ages 15 or 16, according to Mason police, scaled a barbed wire security fence in the near-zero cold last Thursday evening. They yanked the plugs on the heating blocks to 59 school buses – effectively preventing the buses from starting early Friday.

Mason school officials cancelled classes for the district’s 10,500 students. Hundreds of private school students who ride Mason buses also were affected.

“If they thought this was a joke, it wasn’t funny,” said Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel in a press statement.  “These illegal acts disrupted the lives of every parent and child in Mason.  They committed a felony and they will soon learn that there are consequences for their actions.”

The teens were each charged with one count of disrupting public services, a fourth- degree felony, and one count of criminal trespassing, a fourth-degree misdemeanor, according to Hutzel.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 16:15:03 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 224 words, total size 3 kb.