One of the rites of passage of high school is pulling off the senior prank.
Over the years, Park City graduating seniors’ harmless stunts have included painting the PC at the top of PC Hill or adding rocks to spell out the word “POT.” In 2012, thousands of dollars of damage was caused by three seniors who vandalized the inside of the high school. This year, unsuspecting students found their cars parked in the school parking lot plastered with fake parking tickets and profane drawings.
In a matter of 15 minutes during the school day Thursday, multiple cars in the high school parking lot were tagged with green warning stickers and profane drawings using shoe polish and window paint.
Park City Police haven’t identified those responsible for the prank and an active investigation is ongoing.
Park City High School Resource Officer Trent Jarman’s police vehicle was one of those targeted. He says students were able to remove the stickers so whether any charges would be filed, he says, would be up to whether a victim’s car was permanently damaged.
“There could be criminal things, but if they come to a mutual agreement that, ‘hey, I did this to your car, I'm going to repair it, I'm going to take care of the situation,’ then it becomes a civil issue,” he said. “If they do, no agreement or anything like that, then yes, it would be up to the city or the county attorney's office to pursue those charges. I just document it and provide them the information.”
Jarman didn’t have an official number of vehicles tagged – only that it was multiple. Fortunately, he says, the stickers seem to be coming off easily.
“The easiest way to remove them is you need to use hand sanitizer,” he said. “And gee, guess what we got a surplus of right now is hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, WD 40. Saturate the sticker really good with that and a razor blade and they come right off. Once you do that, rinse the vehicle off with soapy water and get the oil off of the windows and stuff like that. It's very rarely, anytime like I've had stickers on my car or anything like that it's done damage to even paint services.”
Painted surfaces, you get to be a little more careful. You can't use a razor blade on that as a matter a little bit of elbow grease and getting it off and then washing the car really good and wax and as again, because the oily stuff will take wax off of a car.”
While he spends a lot of time patrolling the parking lot, he says it was just a coincidence that he was inside the school attending to a student when the pranksters went to work.
This senior prank could be the exclamation point at the end of Jarman’s police career. After serving in law enforcement for 23 years – 16 of those with Park City and 3 and a half as Park City High School’s resource officer – he is retiring next week and will begin a new career as a realtor.
