As you’ve likely noticed in recent years, it’s pretty easy for harmful and ill-advised trends to quickly spread across social media platforms. And in some cases, whatever clout users chase by participating in these trends hardly seems worth it when they get arrested as a result.
But of course, there are no shortage of people whose social media stunts manage to get them investigated and charged without the help of any wider trend.
That ties into another trend you’ve likely noticed over the last decade where some irresponsible YouTubers have shown how severely they’ve lost touch with what a prank is supposed to be. Because rather than pulling lighthearted jokes on their friends, these individuals seem more keen to harass total strangers and pretend to engage in serious crimes with the hope that saying “it’s just a prank bro” will bail them out.
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But while one might expect that stories of online pranksters catching felony charges for engaging in this kind of behavior would deter others from following suit, it seems that some folks still haven’t gotten the message.
On January 28, a YouTuber named Jason Cid posted a video in which he coached one of his friends to call 911 on him.
As the friend’s conversation with a dispatcher makes clear, the purpose of the video was to trick the police into thinking he was selling narcotics.
And judging by the video’s title that refers to the responding officers as “aggressive,” he appeared to hope that he would be arrested in dramatic fashion before they discovered his ruse.
And once the officers arrive, it’s also clear that Cid’s friends are working off a script intended to direct their attention to the trunk of his car.
One of them tells the officers that there’s “stuff in the trunk” and when Cid feigns shock at this apparent betrayal, the friend replies, “I’m not going to jail for you.”
But while Cid’s extraction from his car turned out more orderly than he likely anticipated, the presence of another police van indicated that he was still successful in attracting multiple teams of officers to his stunt.
As Insider reported , a total of four officers would be diverted to the spectacle.
As two officers kept watch over Cid’s group while they were seated on a nearby curb, the other two searched his trunk.
And of course, they soon discovered that the only Coke Cid had in his car came in the form of several cans of Coca Cola.
By the time Cid posted his video, he and his friends were released as officers were under the impression that they were simply victims of a misunderstanding.
However, once his video clearly demonstrated that Cid has orchestrated the entire incident, he was charged with a third-degree felony for misuse of 911.
At the time of this writing, his bond amount has been set at $2,500. Ironically, his friends might indeed be going to jail for him as Coral Springs Police Chief Clyde Parry has since indicated that further arrests may be forthcoming.
In a video response available here, Chief Parry explained that Cid’s prank delayed police from responding to seven other emergency calls.
In his words, “While these officers were tied up on a made up call, they were unavailable to respond to vehicle accidents, EMS calls, heart attacks, and other real emergencies.”
For this reason, Parry decried the stunt as an unfunny and dangerous prank that could have resulted in serious injury or death.
And as he said while showing a clip of Cid being arrested for real, “As you can see, the joke’s on him.”
h/t: Insider
