Student jailed for bogus 911 call

A high school student is in the Westchester County, New York jail where he's being held in lieu of $5,000 bail. He's charged with making a bogus 911 call last week, reporting a shooting in which the school resource officer had been hit.

The call that Dante Lawrence allegedly made from a classmate's cellphone Friday morning resulted in a lockdown of the Walter Panas High School in Cortlandt as more than a dozen state troopers and county police officers raced there, believing there was a shooting and that Trooper Philip Russo, the school resource officer, had been hit.

It didn't take police long to determine that the call was a prank when the student whose phone Lawrence allegedly used to make the call immediately came forward.

Police charged Lawrence with third-degree falsely reporting an incident, a misdemeanor. James VanDevelde, spokesman for the Lakeland school district declined to comment on what in-school punishment Lawrence could face. "It's not something we can discuss, because he has rights," he said. "But anything that would happen (in school) would take place after the courts handled the case." (info from The Journal-News)