Crime & Safety

Scavenger Hunt Shenanigans End in 7 Student Arrests

Fair Lawn police shut down the annual high school scavenger hunt Sunday after learning students had stolen borough property, Detective David Boone said.

The annual student-organized scavenger hunt met an early end for the second time in four years Sunday after police learned teens had again resorted to extralegal means to procure list items, Detective David Boone said.

Police shut down the event, put on each year by Fair Lawn High School seniors, after finding evidence of vandalism, theft and alcohol behind Pathmark at the scavenger hunt's check point, Boone said.

He said that when officers pulled up to the check point to investigate whether a scavenger hunt participant was responsible for a shoplifting incident reported earlier in the night, the students bolted, leaving behind alcohol.

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Just then, Boone said an SUV packed with seven students not wearing seatbelts, "lots of alcohol," and a stolen borough street sign pulled up behind him.

When he told the teens they were under arrest and asked for identification, one of the rear passengers provided false information and then made a break for it, the detective said.

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The teen made it down past the football fields at the Dobrow Complex, where he jumped into the brush near the old Walsh Pool area in an attempt to elude arrest, Boone said. Police ultimately located him by following the rustling noises he was making in the brush and arrested him, Boone said.

The teen, who Boone said ended up being the out-of-town boyfriend of a Fair Lawn High School student, will be charged as a juvenile with providing false information to police and resisting arrest.

All six of the other students arrested — five males and one female — attended Fair Lawn High School. Boone said the car's driver, who had not been drinking, took responsibility for the stolen street sign. The sign is believed to have been taken from High Street, where police received reports of teens taking a street sign earlier in the night, Boone said.

The alcohol found in the car had not been opened, the detective said.

Sunday night's shenanigans come three years after nine Fair Lawn High School students were charged with burglary after allegedly breaking into the high school to secure scavenger list items that included a SMART board, a stuffed unicorn and plastic letters from the Sasso Field press box, according to a NorthJersey.com report.

Boone said students, who are required to provide police with an advance copy of the scavenger hunt list, submitted a neutered list this year that did not include the street sign. He wasn't sure whether the altered list included other problematic items.

Given the repeated problems police have had reeling in scavenger night mischief, Boone said police are discouraging students from holding the event in the future.

Neither the police nor the school district officially sanction the scavenger hunt, he said.

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