Crime & Safety

Student in EPHS Vandalism Case Speaks

Jacob Zimmerman, one of the 24 teens arrested in connection with the vandalism of East Paulding High, spoke to Atlanta media about his role in the "senior prank" he says went too far.

senior class president, and potential valedictorian may not get to return to a regular classroom before the end of his high school career.

Jacob Zimmerman following . He told Fox 5 Atlanta that he has been suspended for the remainder of the school year for his role in the incident, though claims he was only involved in spray-painting the intersection in front of the school—an action he says many other students have done in past years.

saw school buildings spray-painted to include windows; some perpetrators also made it onto the school’s roof, which was also painted. Some of the paintings across the campus, in addition to “Senior” and “2012,” also included the text “YOLO” and “Musgrove is a [expletive]”—the latter message seemingly targeting Assistant Principal Greg Musgrove.

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Two vehicles also were spray-painted, as were the guardhouse, fences, signs, a scoreboard and the school’s pirate ship. Vandals also threw chairs, tables and benches into the school’s parking lot, a incident report said.

“If I knew that doing a senior prank would result in all of this, I would’ve never gone,” Zimmerman told Fox 5.

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In all, school district officials said clean-up of the damage to East Paulding High .

Though Zimmerman told the Atlanta TV station that he is spending his last remaining weeks of his senior year in alternative school, no official word on his peers’ punishments have been released by school district officials, who said that how many students were punished, what punishments they received or whether students’ punishments differed.

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