Neighborhood Pranksters

We had a bit of excitement today. When arriving home this morning from cleaning at church I noticed something shiny a little further down the street. At first glance I couldn't figure out exactly what it was or even where exactly it was. Shane suggested that maybe it was a silver streamer. To me it looked like either it was along a neighbor's yard or something across the road itself. Since there was no one around I was surprised that it looked like something may actually be strung across the street. I decided to look into it so we drove down the road a bit further until we got to the shiny object, a long strip of packing tape which was wrapped around a no parking sign on one side of the road and then strung to the other side and wrapped around a matching sign. After a quick moment of surprise and confusion the boys took down the tape. They ran home and I went to talk to my father in law whose driveway was within a few feet of the signs. When asked if he'd seen anything he said that yes, his dog had alerted him that there was someone outside. When he looked out the window he saw three teen-aged boys just leaving the area, running south on the street. I had come along a short time later.

After leaving my in-law's house I drove north on the street to see if there were other taped areas. Not finding any I headed south. Near the house south of ours, where the roads intersect, there was another line of tape across the road. At this point I realized this was more disturbing than my initial confusion. There is an elderly couple living in the next house down and if the elderly woman had been walking her dog and had not seen the tape she may have ran into it and possibly injured herself. Also, a car hitting the tape, with it wrapped tightly around the signs may have damaged the car, the signs, or both.

The driver of another car had seen me standing in the middle of the road and stopped to see if I needed assistance. When I asked if they could see the tape they said no that until I pointed it out they didn't see anything there. The light wasn't hitting it right from the angle he was at. They too were surprised and upset by this prank. Shane and Logan took down the tape and then we drove through the neighborhood looking for more. But not after I called the police. I decided that while this was probably meant to be a harmless prank it was possible for someone or someone's property to be injured or damaged.

No other tape was found, however, we did see the pranksters running between houses just a couple south of ours. A short time later a police officer stopped by and took down a short incident report to keep on file in case something more happens. He agreed that this could have caused injury or damage and thanked me for removing the tape and reporting this.

This wasn't the first time I'd seen teen boys running around the neighborhood but as far as we know there are no teen boys living in the neighborhood. We think they may have come from one of the areas to the south. Last time I had seen one of them running around was after dark and he was hiding behind trees in the same area that I'd seen them today. That time I'd just alerted a neighbor who was walking his dog because the teen was last seen across from his home running up a driveway and hiding behind thin trees (he wasn't able to hide very well behind skinny trees!).

If nothing else comes of this my two boys and one of Shane's friends know that this is wrong and that they will not get away with such behavior. They all agreed that it needed to be reported. Personally, if I'd known the teens I would have been happy just letting their parents know what had happened. Hopefully this would be all that was needed.