Playing With Blow-Up Dolls Could Give You 8 Years Behind Bars

Ever since Columbine, violence in public schools has been recognized worldwide as a serious issue that needs to be addressed to protect teachers and students.

While it’s a safety precaution to sound the alarm bells when an 18-year-old high school student is caught on camera going into the girls’ washroom wearing a hooded sweatshirt, latex gloves and a “suspicious package,” when you realize the mystery package merely contained a blow-up doll, you suspend the student for costing the school $8,000 to call in the bomb squad, call it what it is — a false alarm — and be happy that no one got hurt.

Except in the case of Tyell Morton of course. The Indiana prankster is facing two serious criminal charges; one felony count of Institutional Criminal Mischief and one misdemeanor count of Disorderly Conduct, according to Facebook.

Clearly, the public is on Tyell’s side. As of today, 2,787 people “Like” the “Free Tyell Morton” Facebook page. It’s a slogan that’s slowly invading all other social media sites. There’s also a Tumblr page, a Twitter account and we can also stay tuned for a YouTube channel, not to mention Tyell’s main hub of support.

“In this post-Columbine world, that’s what you get when these kinds of things happen,” said Rush County Prosecutor Phil Cavines. But paranoia is far from caution.

Tyell shouldn’t have pulled such a prank. Punishment should be given where it’s due, but he didn’t intend to harm anybody — unless the blow-up doll had machine-gun jubblies or something.

He’s a kid who’s dumbfounded about the trumped up charges he faces. “They’re blowing it out of proportion. I didn’t hurt anybody, I didn’t intend to embarrass anybody. What did I do wrong, you know?” Morton said in court two days after the incident.

Obviously, he didn’t realize how far a harmless prank could go, but ultimately, the time doesn’t match the crime.

Contact the author here: tinybart@morningquickie.com