From the Maryland State Fire Marshal’ Office:
At 11:36 am The Aberdeen Fire Department responded to an automatic alarm with-in the Aberdeen High School located at 251 Paradise Street, Aberdeen. The fire alarm activation was determined to be malicious in nature.
Deputy State Fire Marshals and officers of the Aberdeen Police Department recovered evidence at the scene which lead to the arrest of a sixteen year old female juvenile.
The juvenile has been charged with causing a false alarm and if convicted faces a penalty of five years incarceration and or $5,000.00 dollars in fines. The juvenile was released into the custody of her parents.
Clay says
Great. Murderers get let out early from prison but we could pay for this girl to be in jail for five years? We all know that laws sometimes dont make sense. We also know that this juvenile isnt going to prison. What we need to realize is that some judge who doesnt like her could send her to jail if he or she wanted. It means that lawmakers should think before passing these laws. Kids who have Christ in the home tend to not do these things as often.
Peter says
Agreed. Suspend her from school and make her do some community service or something.
Maybe the 5 year penalty is reserved for someone who falsely pulls an alarm which results in a panicked crowd trampling people? That’s the only justification I could see.
Nope says
She won’t / can’t even go to jail. She would have to be charged as an adult. Her charges are not serious enough for that.
KeepChurch&Stateseparate says
Clay,
Please, the inclusion of Christ wouldn’t make a difference in this matter or just about any other matter. Do you have any idea how many murderers, rapists, ect… were brought up as kids with Christ in their homes? You would be amazed. Your thought is very nice/sentimental but has no bearing in the real world.
People sometimes do stupid and cruel things regardless of their race, religion and socio-economic status.
Harford County says
She won’t go to jail for 5 years.
Cdev says
The sentence they said she COULD get is the maximum under the statute. If she is remorseful and pleads guilty she will get substaintially less.
truthfactor says
HUH?!?
noble says
Based on just the information above, I’d have to say that a $1000 fine +court costs, 1 year of juvi probation, and 2 years of community service sounds fair.
You're right says
This probably should’ve been handled administratively by the school. This child could most likely use an intervention but like usual, we would rather just label her a “bad kid” and criminally charge her. Great work by the police thought, look at the school surviellance photo and ask the school administrator “Hey, who’s this kid”. Maybe they will turn it into a “Law and Order” episode!
amazed... says
@You’re right, the kid pulled the alarm which I’m sure started the ball rolling… i.e. police and fire response. I doubt the school could have simply told law enforcement “take a hike, we’ll handle this administratively…” I would prefer to see her pay the actual cost of first response and subsequent investigation so she and her peers would see a real association between action and penalty… do something stupid and pay the actual cost of of your stupidity.
B says
It will be handled administratively, but it is also a CRIME to pull a false fire alarm. In your thinking the police should never have charged the three girls that made the false bomb threats to several schools last week with a CRIME either. Please think before you post!
truthfactor says
The maximum penalty of 5 years could only apply to an adult, she is underage and as previously stated by other readers she won’t get charged as an adult as the crime is not serious enough to send her to trial as an adult. CDEV and AMAZED… are obviously living in another world. The cost of the first response and the investigation would obviously have to be paid by her parents who had absolutely no way of preventing the incident as they were not present at the incident. The fact that someone could actually go to jail for 5 years for setting off a false fire alarm is the most ridiculous penalty I have ever heard of. Why would lawmakers pass such an insane penalty for a misdemeanor. It used to be a misdemeanor was punishable by less than a year and a felony over a year. Lawmakers in Maryland have turned small crime into big time and they did it without the approval of the general public. They do everything behind closed doors and the public finds out about it after the fact. This law is BS. As far as the police go charging the girl and acting like she could get 5 years is just a shining example of how our nice little out of the way county has become under the rule of police and judges. The police, AMAZED…, CDEV and NOBLE all need a reality check as anyone thinking that this was anymore than a High School prank is totally bass ackwards. I’m not saying what she did was not wrong, but police are out of their minds if they think charging this girl will make her face an actual court other than a juvenile court. This whole incident is a waste of time and money, both by the 16 year old girl and the police. She should be suspended from school for 3 days, end of story.
B says
Your disdain for authority is quite evident.
harfordmom says
please don’t breed, if it’s to late with your attitude I hope you have a lot of money saved for bail –
harfordmom says
truthfactor..apparently I was wrong about saving for bail money…Clay just thinks Christ is all that is needed…maybe he has more money for bail…
lock em up says
give her a weekend in jail and have her do community service to repay all the costs of her incident