Last Saturday, two male teenagers absconded from campus with a yellow, child-shaped pedestrian warning sign.
Around 9 p.m., new students and house counselors in Fuess House encountered the thieves on their way to the Pine Knoll dumpsters to discard move-in boxes and plastic wrap.
According to Mark Cutler, House Counselor in Fuess, a teenager hopped out of a vehicle that approached the dumpers. The teenager then grabbed the caution sign and hurled it into the trunk of the car.
Cutler said, “When [the two teenagers] first reached the dumpsters, we all turned to say hello, and they laughed at us, sort of mockingly, which is when we determined that they were up to no good. They drove around the [knoll] and, we figured, away, but they slowly crept back to the same point at which they had paused previously. That’s when we knew that something strange was about to happen.”
Cutler and Justin Aimonetti ’13, a resident of Fuess, darted after the car, but the vehicle accelerated over a pedestrian path on a grass hill towards 1924 House and onto Highland Road.
Later that evening, Chris Crowell, a Phillips Academy Public Safety (PAPS) Officer, found the car in the parking lot of Graves Hall and encouraged the two individuals to confess and cooperate with PAPS.
Cutler had placed the caution sign on the path around the knoll to warn cars of his kids’ presence in the street, after they learned to ride bikes this past summer.
