End-of-year school prank burns part of Everglades High School football field
By Marlene Naanes, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Pranksters set fire to a high school football field Wednesday night or early Thursday, burning a phallic symbol into the grass.
"It was a 15-foot outline of male genitalia," said Miramar Police spokesman Bill Robertson.
A vandal burned the shape into one of the end zones at Everglades High School just in time for the last day of school. The fire was out by the time school employees arrived at work Thursday morning.
Police aren’t laughing at the apparent joke, and are looking for the culprits.
"Even though they consider it an end-of-the-school-year prank, we’re taking it very seriously," Robertson said.
It appears someone squirted accelerant onto the grass and lighted it. When the accelerant finished burning, the fire went out, left the outline and caused no other damage, Robertson said.
But enough harm was done to earn the culprit, if found, at least two felony charges of arson and felony criminal mischief, possibly punishable with at least one year in jail. Investigators estimate the damage to the grass and soil between $500 and $1,000, Robertson said.
With the exception of a group of teenagers vandalizing the same school last year and someone adorning another school’s roof with tires another year, these sorts of end-of-the-year pranks have decreased after schools increased security in the wake of the Columbine shootings and Sept. 11, said Joe Melita, chief of the Broward School District’s Special Investigations Unit. Crime watch programs, security cameras and general vigilance have deterred such activity.
"Pranks are no longer considered pranks," Melita said. "We take these things very seriously."
Melita, who was a principal in Deerfield Beach before working for the Special Investigations Unit, said pranks at his school went only as far as students throwing shaving cream at each other or emptying the contents of their lockers in the hallway. Melita hadn’t heard of any other end-of-the-year pranks this year.
"Most kids are just so happy to get out," he said. "This is an unusual year because we get out so early."
No one from Everglades High School could be reached for comment.
Everglades fell victim last year to a more vicious form of vandalism less than a week before school let out.
That time, police suspected students from nearby schools spray painted explicit sexual images and statements along with various schools’ names on the outdoor corridors, the track field, a scoreboard and on bleachers with damage adding up to more than $30,000, a police report said.
No one was arrested in that vandalism.