Eloy Lopes held the door of his old high school,GlenOak High School, and could now face up to eight years in prison because of this action. Lopes was arrested at 10 p.m. Friday by Stark County Sheriff’s deputies on charges of complicity to inducing panic and criminal aggravated trespass after he held open the door to GlenOak High School to allow a student to exit during the prank.
Lopes was not a current student at the time of the incident and was considered to be trespassing. A complicity charge is a second-degree felony, punishable in Ohio by a maximum sentence upon conviction of eight years in prison and a $15,000 fine.
Three others are facing charges after a student rode a dirt bike through the hallways of the high school. A video shared more than 1,000 times on Twitter showed a helmeted rider racing the dirt bike through a hallway while classes were in session. It led school administrators to place the school on lockdown.
“It wasn’t funny to us, and it wasn’t funny to the school,” said Stark County Sheriff’s Office Captain CJ Stantz, who said at least five deputies responded to the call of the lockdown. “Through investigation we were able to find all of the students involved and they all were charged.” The sheriff continued on to say,“Anytime you disrupt the school when you’re riding a motor vehicle inside of a school building, to us that’s not a senior prank, that’s a criminal offense.”
Stantz warned others to avoid disruptive and potentially dangerous pranks, or else face serious consequences. “Our job is safety and security at that school,” he said. “There could’ve been students injured. There could’ve been faculty injured. And they disrupted the day of school.”
A spokesperson from the school provided a statement, saying, “The safety and security of all of our students is always a top concern and this incident is no different. Our staff at GlenOak acted swiftly in addressing the immediate safety concerns as a result of the prank.”
Senior Audrey McCracken commented on the situation. “I think it’s pretty harsh to punish kids with jail time. Every class has a senior prank. It’s all in good fun and I feel like the school blew it way out of proportion,” McCracken continued, “But I do think it was smart on the schools part if they are trying to prevent others from doing senior pranks.
