AURORA, Illinois (AP) -- A high school senior accused of starting a massive food fight that left a police officer injured was among three students arrested in the prank...
The alleged instigator, Demetrius Oglesby, 18, faces a felony charge of resisting arrest after authorities said he ran from a police officer. The officer tripped over another student who had fallen during the food fight, breaking his foot. A school official also suffered minor injuries.
Two juveniles also face misdemeanor charges from the incident, including a 15-year-old charged with mob action and disorderly conduct and a 14-year-old charged with assault.
Students said rumors of the food fight had been circulating throughout the 3,000-student school all week as a senior prank.
"A prank is something that's funny and doesn't harm anything or anyone, but a food fight is entirely different -- a bad choice, bad judgment," said Principal John Glimco.
I'm not sure, but I think the worst thing about this entire situation is that they only found three students to bust.
When a similar incident happened at a school in my son's district, the students lost their prom. At the end of the year, I could think of a number of senior privileges that could "go away". In our case, our seniors have Senior Luncheon, and Senior Picnic the Friday before graduation. It isn't something that the school has to do, but something that the senior look forward to. I know some will say that it would be punishing the whole class for the acts of a few, but peer pressure is such that the threat of such wrath from their fellow seniors over losing a perceived privilege could eliminate the cachet of committing such ridiculous acts. Personally, I think too many of these kids have been raised on "Animal House" and "American Pie" and the think their every action is funny and that the results will be negligible. Of course, parents will probably sue and whine and take it to the media.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first saw this headline this morning, I thought it was another case of zero-tolerance gone awry. That is, until I read they were throwing full pop bottles. I remember a few food-fights in my youth, but we were throwing stuff like Jell-o.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's always room for Jell-o.
Now hold on right there, EllenK. Just yesterday I watched American Pie for the first time in well over a year, and it still had me in stitches throughout most of the movie. Let's not be casting aspersions on what is clearly a masterpiece of modern cinema :-)
ReplyDeleteI am not saying it's not funny. Heck, "American Graffiti", "Animal House" and "Revenge of the Nerds" were movies that we enjoyed. The problem is the disconnect between current students and reality. They seem to think that the people and actions and results of movies and media are real. So they do things like ride bikes off of apartment buildings a la Jackass, or get ridiculously stinking drunk and trash someone's house. The problem is while the absurdity of these things are funny on the big screen, in real life they are not. I think this moved beyond a food fight and into a simple riot. And like it or not, people get hurt in riots no matter how amusing the original plot line.
ReplyDeleteI knew what you meant!
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