<p>I think, OP, you should look at the irony here…your CC thread says: “PLEASE HELP!!” and everyone came running to help. Imagine at your school, if there are a lot of false fire alarms like yours which was a prank, imagine when someone yells, “help! fire!” and/or a real fire alarm goes off and nobody runs to help. You wanted help here and asked for it. We took you at your word that you truly needed help. Will people at your school when they hear the next fire alarm and it is a real one, take it for face value?</p>
<p>If they take into account of local laws then the penalty could be very bad.
For example:</p>
<p>“Any person who willfully and without cause tampers with, molests, injures or breaks any public or private fire alarm apparatus, emergency phone, radio, or other wire or signal, or any firefighting equipment, or who willfully and without having reasonable grounds for believing a fire exists, sends, gives, transmits, or sounds any false alarm of fire, by shouting in a public place or by means of any public or private fire alarm system or signal, or by telephone, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”</p>
<p>If this violation is considered a “severe policy violation,” then it looks like the punishment is being kicked to the curb without getting your room & board money back. That would NOT make your parents happy…</p>
<p>My compliments too, to those that have advised this young person to 'fess up, and to realize the “snitch” is not the one who did wrong.</p>
<p>Other threads that have the same principle(I did a wrong and I got caught)- such as: I got a speeding ticket, or I’ve changed my mind on a binding ED for example, often times get advice to fight it by hook or by crook even if a person admits they did the wrongful act. People haven’t done that here.</p>
<p>To the student: what you did may not have been very harmful, this time. But sometimes it was, and could be again. This wasn’t a murder, but it wasn’t jaywalking, either. No one is arguing you intended to hurt people. Admit the bad judgment, learn from it, face the consequences, express what you’ve learned, and move on a better person. Personally, I suspect your attitude and words at any hearing might have a large affect on the punishment meted out.</p>
<p>It’s kind of ridiculous that you won’t get very much punishment for this, but at my high school and middle school (if you were 12 or older) if they saw the dye from the alarms on your body you were handcuffed and arrested on the spot.</p>
<p>I think your punishment should be to transfer to a college in a cold, snowy place. Then you should be awakened by a blaring horn at about 2:30 every morning all winter and spend 30 minutes outside in only your robe, jammies, and slippers. I went to college at a northern university, and some jerk pulled the file alarm regularly in our dorm in the middle of the night in the winter. It remains one of the most annoying experiences I have ever experienced even 25 years later. Consider yourself lucky that it is only the college administrators punishing you, not that mob of students at 2:30 am… we would not have been as kind as to just suggest you be ejected from college housing.</p>
<p>uh??
puulllease…the kid is lucky if not charged with a CRIME, causing a public hazard that puts life in peril…</p>
<p>signing the housing contract means the kid agrees to the rules…what can a lawyer do…saying the kid didn’t understand the rules? This is a college student…</p>
<p>When my kid was in 3rd grade, he was in a university children’s choir. Every time we went to the campus we walked by an “emergency call” stand. There was a blue light on top and a large red button, “press to call security.” One day my kid–the Curious George type–hit the button as we were walking by. Siren went off, light started flashing. I should’ve stayed there and made him meet the security officer. But I just kept on walking.
I asked my kid “WHY?!?!?” He said, “I always wondered what would happen if I pressed that button. . .” I explained that this was wrong and dangerous because it wastes the officer’s time and energy, and could possibly take his/her attention away from a REAL emergency.</p>
<p>My point is-- this is the kind of thing an 8-year-old might do. A college student already knows what will happen if he pulls a fire alarm. He should have impulse control by age 18+.</p>
<p>If a fire truck was sent to the location, then the person who pulled the fire alarm would be responsible for all costs associated with it. A friend´s 10 year old son pulled the fire alarm at school as a prank. She was charged with a lot of $$$.</p>
<p>When I was at Cal Poly during the 70’s I remember the alarm going off regularly to the point that we paid no attention to it. Dumb thing to do but like someone else said, you are not the first. My guess is that prior to being caught, you really gave no thought to what the consequences in terms of injuries in case of a real fire might be. Now that consequences have been pointed out to you, research the subject and what devastation has occurred in dorm fires where everyone thought it was “just another false alarm”. Admit what you did, don’t make excuses or blame others, and tell the RA what you have since realized. Let us know what happens.</p>
<p>In addition to the other practical and potentially dangerous reasons not to pull the alarm and the not-so-bright decision to do it - it’s a quick way to make yourself less popular than you might have been otherwise. No one likes an alarm puller because it’s a giant pain for them in addition to being the type of prank someone in college should have grown way beyond by the point in time when they get into college. Some students are sleeping, some are cramming for a test, some are trying to finish up a program to turn it in by the deadline in a few minutes, and the list goes on and all of these students need to be disturbed by the self-centered and adolescent prank of the alarm pulling. I don’t think you’d find much sympathy for your cause among the other students in the dorm.</p>
<p>But I wonder - are you pranking us now with this thread - is it real - should any of us take it seriously and respond or should we just ignore it? (along the lines of soozievt’s point here)</p>
<p>I know someone who did this a number of years ago at Bucknell and he was kicked out of the dorm. His parents had to help him find off campus housing - which was an added expense and was inconvenient. But certainly an appropriate punishment.</p>
<p>but at my high school and middle school (if you were 12 or older) if they saw the dye from the alarms on your body you were handcuffed and arrested on the spot.</p>
<p>Wow…there’s alarms that shoot out dye? Yeah! </p>
<p>Actually, simply having cameras in the hallways would also catch (can discourage) such childish behaviors.</p>
<p>Again…I am shocked that any college aged kid would do this. It’s so 5th grade.</p>
<p>my child–age 18 mos pulled a fire alarm hanging on the wall of the elementary school while I was holding him…the bright red knob on and small red alarm box was within kiddo’s arms reach and I didn’t know it was behind me!..it was at a mtg during a pre school year visit to plan for a faculty luncheon…and was so embarassing–I felt horrible. Thankfully only the janitorrs/principal etc were alarmed and stopped it, and cancelled the Fire Dept notice…whew!</p>
<p>As far as alarms and dye–I know years ago there were alarms that would ink the hands of the person who pulled it–I think this happened during a time when city Fire Depts were having trouble with false alarms.</p>
<p>False alarms are criminal and prosecutable.</p>
<p>OP - I think some volunteer hours in the burn unit at a local hospital might do you good. And maybe you should thank that kid who “snitched” on you for wising you up to the fact that you are far too immature for your age or privileged position as an on campus college student.</p>
<p>At my school during freshman orientation our Area Coordinator of our dorm told us that if we got caught pulling one of the fire alarms she would do everything she could do to make sure we got suspended. In some of the dorms at my school there’s been 150+ fire alarms in a year, ridiculous! Most of them were from people burning ramen noodles (how the hell do you do that) or putting popcorn in the microwave for 10 minutes, I even heard about steam from the showers setting the fire alarms off. This year in my building we had about 5 fire alarms in the first week. The sad thing is that during those only about 10 people would come out while 650 people live in my building.</p>