GILROY
– City police say they plan to seek restitution for the heavy
public cost incurred by a prank phone call Friday morning.
GILROY – City police say they plan to seek restitution for the heavy public cost incurred by a prank phone call Friday morning.
The caller, whom police believe was a female Gilroy High School student masking her voice to sound like a male, said she had a gun, was at GHS and planned to shoot her cooking teacher.
It’s unknown how much this cost taxpayers, but it certainly wasn’t cheap. More than 30 police officers were involved in a three-hour school lockdown and investigation, and the California Highway Patrol brought in an airplane from Paso Robles and a helicopter from Napa in case they needed to spot fleeing suspects. The aircraft were not needed, but they are expensive to launch.
“I don’t know how much money (all) that is, but I know it’s a whole lot more than I have in my checkbook right now,” Gilroy police Sgt. John Sheedy said.
Capt. Scot Smithee said the department will explore every avenue possible to get restitution.
“All this for a prank,” Smithee said. “They won’t think it’s so funny when the bill comes.”
After locking down the school for three hours and launching an investigation, police arrested three 17-year-old GHS students: the girl they think made the call and a boy and girl they say were in on the joke.
Assistant Police Chief Lanny Brown said police would look to the children’s parents for repayment.
The arrested boy’s mother said she doesn’t have this kind of money and doesn’t know what she’ll do.
One of the charges police are seeking, misuse of the 9-1-1 system, a misdemeanor, contains a clause that, if convicted, the defendants will have to repay “all reasonable costs incurred by any unnecessary emergency response.”
Brown said city police will probably encourage the Gilroy Unified School District to also seek restitution from the kids’ parents.
Peter Crowley covers public safety for The Dispatch. He can be reached at 842-6400 ext. 285 or at pc******@gi************.com.
