Alarm Clock Prank Brings Felony Charges

(CBS/AP)  Nineteen high school seniors have been charged with planting a false bomb -- a felony -- for a prank. The students sneaked into the school overnight and taped 20 alarm clocks to the walls. The clocks were timed to go off at the start of classes.

The Hendrick Hudson High School seniors appeared in Cortlandt Town Court on Monday morning. Fifteen of the 19 pleaded not guilty and four did not enter a plea because they had no attorneys.

The students are charged with second-degree placing a false bomb, which is a felony. If convicted, they each face up to four years in prison. They also
face one violation count of criminal trespass.

One attorney, John Sarcone of White Plains, who spoke outside the court, was angry that the students are banned from graduation on Friday. He said the students were innocent until proven guilty and they should not be penalized.

Dozens of other students have been ordered to perform at least five hours of community service for donating money or helping buy the clocks.

The students used a key that had been missing for a year to break into the school last weekend and then used duct tape to secure the clocks to hallway walls.

The students touched off a motion detector inside the school. State police who responded feared that the ticking clocks might be bombs and called in bomb-sniffing dogs.

"It never crossed anyone's mind that this could be taken that way," said Alex Kane, a senior who said he contributed $1 to the clock fund, told the New York Times.

One student, Ariel Billary, 18, was at the courthouse to offer support. She said keeping the students out of graduation also hurts the parents, who waited all these years to see their children graduate.

[lil_angels]

Has anyone lost site of the fact that these are children. Sure they are ready to graduate - but they aren't really mature. They are supposed to make mistakes and hopefully learn from them. I think the choice they made for a senior prank - while on the surface is creative and funny - required deeper thought for possible repercussions. We know you can't say the word bomb in an airport, nor can you joke about suicide, yet there are people who still do this.

These kids%u2019 brains are not developed enough to think beyond themselves. It's not necessarily a shortcoming of the parents - it's physiological. I think anyone who blames the parents either doesn%u2019t have teenagers, or can%u2019t remember what they did when they were kids. Was it your parents fault that you did stupid things as a teen? These kids still need many more years of life lessons to think beyond themselves. I think punishment is deserved if not required, but a felony is overkill. The threat of a felony has already taught them a good lesson. Hopefully the judge/jury who hear this case will keep that in mind.

[zurralaan]

The prank these kids pulled has got nothing on some of the things done by retired law enforcement officers that I'm friends with. Sure they deserve to get their buts chewed out and the *** scared outta them but felony charges just makes me believe a little bit more that this government is only a few steps away from taking away our rights and putting us on that very slippery slope that ends with the sound of jackboots marching down our streets. I can hear it now.

[gunownerdan]

Americans are affraid of their own shadows these days.
Frightened helpless imbeciles-
Just what the terrorists want!

[ttenchantr]

Does everybody think "bomb" first now? I hate this mindset. Every time the power goes out or more than three cars collide, we must first rule out terrorism. Seems the terrorists have won!

Anyway, I wish I had the money to send a case of alarm clocks to that bomb squad. When was the last time anyone ever heard a bomb tick like a alarm clock outside of Bugs Bunny cartoon?

[swtgapch]

What a pathetic bunch of idiots. And I don't mean the teens. No wonder kids hate going to school anymore. It is almost like prison. Pretty soon they will not be able to look at another person without getting put in lockdown. We are raising a generation of whiney little brats that have no idea what a joke is or how to laugh at themselves. The ones that do know what a joke is are punished for it. Reminds me of a stupid little guy named hitler.

[griking]

Oh please. These are 17-19 year old young men, not small children. They are (hopefully) educated since they were about to graduate. There is absolutely no way that any intelligent being can think that this isn't a very stupid thing to do. With the school shootings that make the front page what did they expect that people would think when they saw these devices throughout the school.

They should have been barren from graduation. Not just for the so called "prank" but because they were all obviously too stupid to let graduate.

[griking]

Oh please. These are 17-19 year old young men, not small children. They are (hopefully) educated since they were about to graduate. There is absolutely no way that any intelligent being can think that this isn't a very stupid thing to do. With the school shootings that make the front page what did they expect that people would think when they saw these devices throughout the school.

They should have been barren from graduation. Not just for the so called "prank" but because they were all obviously too stupid to let graduate.

[griking]

Oh please. These are 17-19 year old young men, not small children. They are (hopefully) educated since they were about to graduate. There is absolutely no way that any intelligent being can think that this isn't a very stupid thing to do. With the school shootings that make the front page what did they expect that people would think when they saw these devices throughout the school.

They should have been barren from graduation. Not just for the so called "prank" but because they were all obviously too stupid to let graduate.

[griking]

Oh please. These are 17-19 year old young men, not small children. They are (hopefully) educated since they were about to graduate. There is absolutely no way that any intelligent being can think that this isn't a very stupid thing to do. With the school shootings that make the front page what did they expect that people would think when they saw these devices throughout the school.

They should have been barren from graduation. Not just for the so called "prank" but because they were all obviously too stupid to let graduate.

[griking]

Oh please. These are 17-19 year old young men, not small children. They are (hopefully) educated since they were about to graduate. There is absolutely no way that any intelligent being can think that this isn't a very stupid thing to do. With the school shootings that make the front page what did they expect that people would think when they saw these devices throughout the school.

They should have been barren from graduation. Not just for the so called "prank" but because they were all obviously too stupid to let graduate.