Proving that just because you work at a college, it doesn't make you smart, Angela Timmons of Spartanburg, S.C., thought it would be hilarious if she sent her daughter a prank text on April 1 claiming that there was a shooting at her workplace, Virginia College. Her daughter, either forgetting it was April Fools' Day or mistakenly believing her mother wouldn't joke about a school shooting, called 911.
Spartanburg County Sheriff's deputies arrived at the campus "thinking Columbine High School, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech," Sheriff Chuck Wright tells FOX Carolina 21. By that point, Timmons, 54, had admitted to her daughter that it was all an April Fools' Day prank, and her daughter told the 911 operator. Timmons was promptly detained by authorities, none of whom were laughing.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Why are home insurance prices going up?Today's Big Question Climate-driven weather events are raising insurers' costs
-
'All too often, we get caught up in tunnel vision'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
2024: the year of legacy media failuresIn the Spotlight From election criticism to continued layoffs, the media has had it rough in 2024
-
ABC News to pay $15M in Trump defamation suitSpeed Read The lawsuit stemmed from George Stephanopoulos' on-air assertion that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll
-
Judge blocks Louisiana 10 Commandments lawSpeed Read U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled that a law ordering schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms was unconstitutional
-
Swearing in the UK: a colourful historyIn The Spotlight Thanet council's bad language ban is the latest chapter in a saga of obscenity
-
ATF finalizes rule to close 'gun show loophole'Speed Read Biden moves to expand background checks for gun buyers
-
Hong Kong passes tough new security lawSpeed Read It will allow the government to further suppress all forms of dissent
-
France enshrines abortion rights in constitutionspeed read It became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right
-
Texas executes man despite contested evidenceSpeed Read Texas rejected calls for a rehearing of Ivan Cantu's case amid recanted testimony and allegations of suppressed exculpatory evidence
-
Supreme Court wary of state social media regulationsSpeed Read A majority of justices appeared skeptical that Texas and Florida were lawfully protecting the free speech rights of users
