BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -
LSU Police say they normally have one or two false reports of violent
crimes each year. Right now, they've had four since August.
"I think that's absolutely ridiculous," said LSU student Caroline Gremillion. "I'm not really sure why anyone would do that."
LSU
Police Captain Cory Lalonde says as crazy as it sounds, since August
four students have told campus police they were victims of armed robbery
or robbery. Turns out, those crimes never happened. Lalonde says the
excuses for lying ran the gambit - everything from not knowing what to
do after losing rent money to a prank on friends that got out of hand.
"But
even at that point the person had the opportunity to cut it short and
tell the truth at that point, but didn't," said Lalonde.
Lalonde
says all four students were arrested for criminal mischief, which is
punishable by up to a $500 fine and six months in jail. Lieutenant
Jeffrey Metzger says the biggest problem with these false reports is
that it takes officers away from solving real crimes and that goes
beyond LSU's campus.
"It affects city police department and the
sheriff's department because we notify them, as well, as soon as we have
these incidents reported in case the suspects would be heading to their
jurisdictions or their area," said Metzger.
Students we spoke to say they're ashamed of their fellow student who would go these lengths to waste law enforcement's time.
"No, there's no legitimate reason to make a false claim like that...at all," said Dominique Shaw.
"It just makes me super embarrassed that people my age would do that," said Caroline Gremillion.
"It is embarrassing," said Mary Johnston."There's absolutely no reason to cause this kind of stir at this level."
Captain Lalonde still wants students to call police for help but only when someone is actually in danger.
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