A telephone prankster posing as a sprinkler company employee caused havoc Saturday morning at an Arkansas Holiday Inn when he convinced an employee to set off the hotel’s fire alarm, smash windows, shut down electricity, and break a sprinkler head that flooded the building lobby. The bizarre incident is detailed in a report prepared by the Conway Police Department, which, as seen below, photographed the aftermath of the June 6 incident.
According to police, Holiday Inn employee Christina Bergmann was at the front desk early Saturday when a male caller “identified himself as an employee of Grennel Fire Sprinkler service.” The man told Bergmann that there was a problem with the hotel’s fire sprinklers and that she “needed to pull the fire alarm to reset them,” cops reported. “Bergmann proceeded to pull the fire alarm at this point, causing the audible alarm.” Bergmann, aided by a hotel guest, would subsequently follow a series of directions from the caller that would result in about $50,000 in damages to the hotel’s windows, carpets and electrical system. Hotel guests, who were evacuated during the incident, were allowed back into the Holiday Inn after police and fire officials determined that the caller was an imposter.
Since a similar prank call was made to a Holiday Inn in Little Rock, Conway cops alerted fellow Arkansas law enforcement officials that “more of these calls could be coming in,” according to the police report.
Read the rest of the story at The Smoking Gun.
remember the days when people had common sense. I miss those days.
ALN – I was just going to comment about the lack of intelligence that is too rampant in our society, but you too are correct about the lack of common sense.
How dumb does somebody have to be to think they need to smash windows to test a sprinkler system?
What sort of behavior do you expect when people are raised to shut up and do what they’re told?
It’s a good thing breathing is involuntary or these idiots would suffocate.
I am no longer welcome at Holiday Inn.
me either but for *other reasons*
Hey, wait a minute, this did happen in Arkansas!
I don’t believe in Arkansas.
Arkansas packed up and moved to Texas.