<p>I read somewhere that Angela Timmons stated that she is horrified that her daughter “overreacted.” </p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p>ETA: I can’t find the article which quoted her as saying her daughter overreacted. I’ll keep looking.</p>
<p>Okay, so the Mom admits her prank was in bad taste, but goes on to say that she was treated “terribly” by the authorities and as a result will be seeking counsel. SERIOUSLY?</p>
<p>Considering the seriousness of mentioning one heard some shots and the climate of fear from mass shootings on campus over the last 15+ years, I’d doubt that defense will be well received by most jurors nor judge(s). </p>
<p>Especially considering part of the reasoning behind penalizing this type of behavior is to encourage the public to report school shootings/crimes when they do happen and for emergency responders to take them seriously and respond in a timely manner. </p>
<p>@fluffy2017 - I am not sure why you are having such a hard time with this. People are responsible for their actions, and if those actions should have been reasonably foreseen to cause harm, they are potentially criminal. In this case no one got hurt, but let’s say someone had. Maybe that would make it easier to understand. Suppose in rushing into the building a student got knocked over and suffered a skull fracture. Totally an accident, but it only happened because this woman started a series of events that a reasonable person should have realized would happen. In that case besides the charges already lodged against her she would also be charged with some form of assault, even though she is not the one that actually ran into the student. That is how the law works, and rightly so. In this case there is no physical harm to anyone (thank God), but what she did is no less reckless just because she got lucky. Substitute the unnecessary use of official resources for the assault in my example and the crime becomes clear, if less drastic. If someone had actually gotten killed somehow, she would probably be facing involuntary manslaughter charges or worse.</p>
<p>So the charges (and clearly these are laws on the books or they couldn’t bring the charges) are A) disturbing school clearly that is something that happened and she triggered it; B) aggravated breach of peace obviously the peace was broken because of her actions; and C) two counts of unlawful use of telephone One count seems obvious (she used the phone to prank her daughter in such a way as to get all this started and using the telephone as the instrument of the crime must be against the law there), and I guess the second is her daughter calling 911 which is like the assault example I gave. The mother didn’t call 911, but it was her actions that resulted in the unlawful call . She can certainly argue that she could not foresee her daughter would react this way given their history of April Fool’s jokes. As was said earlier, I doubt a judge or jury will be sympathetic to that argument. The point isn’t that she “just” had a conversation with her daughter. The point is that the content of that conversation from her side was exactly the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater, because her daughters response of calling 911, especially after seeing a panicky text message and ignoring it, was highly foreseeable, IMO.</p>
<p>SC Disturbing school law: <a href=“http://www.cctech.edu/3585.htm”>http://www.cctech.edu/3585.htm</a>
Misdemeanor. $1000 fine or up to 90 days in jail.
Depending on if the college was “disturbed” or not, whatever the legal definition of “disturb” may be in SC. If classes went on as normal and no other function was “disturbed,” a good lawyer can get her off. </p>
<p>and so on… i’m sure most here can use google better than i can.</p>
<p>@annie2018 - I thought the same thing, that she might get off on the first two charges I listed but be found guilty on the phone charges. It does depend on the exact wording of the law to start, and then of course on how the exact circumstances are presented and judged. Whatever the case, it was really stupid.</p>
<p>Frankly I am in support with the mother in this case. We have created this tradition of April Fools and if someone wishes to partake in it, I do not see what is wrong. I also can’t even imagine the guilt she must be feeling as she is being arrested for what she had initially intended to be a harmless joke. I do agree, however, that the jokes should be a bit less extreme. </p>
You must be kidding. It doesn’t mean that anything goes. As you say at the end, it should have been less extreme. You can’t have it both ways. Clearly what she did caused a reaction that neither the daughter nor the police thought to themselves “Oh this is an April Fool’s joke. We can just ignore this”. Can you imagine if that had been their course of action and the whole thing turned out to be real?? OMG, the crap would be flying like never before. Just think about that for a minute. The mother certainly should have. Nope, the reality is there is no defending this particular April Fools “joke”.</p>
<p>@wannabefeynman - I am moving your quote from the other thread to this one so as not to get the other off track.</p>
<p>
Can you honestly not see that statement as trivial beyond belief? No one thought that her intention was to cause the firestorm she did, and that has zero to do with the discussion. If that is the best opinion you can offer…well, it adds zero to the discussion.</p>
<p>Besides, look at what you actually said.
and
There is no extrapolation to be made, despite your confusing disclaimer at the end. Perhaps you just have trouble saying what it is you want to say in a clear way.</p>
<p>@fluffy2017,
I agree with you that it is hard to understand because it is saying that the mother is responsible for the daughter’s actions. The mother did not call the police and prank them.
Maybe the police could have put more effort into substantiating the claims of shooting after they received a secondhand account based only on one text message. You would think that if there was a real shooting, there would be more people calling in. But one text message once removed from the source and the whole squad gets sent out?
It is hard to tell emotions over a text message. For this reason, people should verify any claims made in them before going to the extent that the daughter and the police went. Maybe the daughter was right to call after she didn’t receive a response. But at least the police should be thinking, “this is only one claim based on a one text message,” and should not be getting themselves into a tizzy before they are sure of the claims.</p>
<p>@clo5439 - I think you don’t understand how these things go. The daughter tried to verify the phone call from the mother and, as you say, got no response. I don’t know what kind of person you are but given the nature of the phone message and then silence when trying to verify, I would absolutely go into action mode. What other conclusion could you come to? For me, it sure wouldn’t be “Oh, this might be an April Fool’s joke. I will wait and make sure it is real in about 5 minutes before I call the police”. The police are trained to immediately respond to these things, no hesitation. Virginia Tech got hammered for delaying action until they could “verify”. Seconds count in these situations.</p>
<p>Quit trying to make excuses for and shift blame from the mother. What she did, given all the campus incidents in the last 10 years which are well known to everyone, was thoughtless and dangerous. End of story.</p>
<p>Yea I guess so. It’s kinda like when a person screams “fire,” but in this case says “fire” to her daughter, in a movie theater. The daughter then reasonably pulls the fire alarm triggering the police.</p>
<p>In in that scenario, I doubt anyone would say “why would the mother be held responsible for her daughter’s actions?” I don’t see how this situation differs in any significant way.</p>
<p>@Nrdsb4 - Right, that is what we have nearly all said. Only clo5439 and one other, I think, thought otherwise and clo5439 changed their mind and agreed with the rest of us and came up with the good analogy. Are you saying something else?</p>