Four Chattanooga State Community College students picked the wrong apartments at which to pull a prank on Monday night and landed themselves in jail.
They were arrested after placing plastic bottle bombs that blew up on a doorstep of the Waterford Place Apartment complex on Shallowford Road, next door to the home of a Hamilton County sheriff’s deputy, according to a Chattanooga Fire Department release.
Arrested in the prank were Brandon Cochran, 20; Jordan Hinson, 20; Aaron Killingsworth, 19; and William Lovelace, said Bruce Garner, public information director for the fire department. They were charged with possession of an explosive device and reckless endangerment, a felony, he said.
The bombs were 2-liter plastic bottles filled with chemicals that cause gas buildup, making the bottles explode, Mr. Garner said. The deputy heard the explosion and came outside to find nine potential suspects and called 911 for fire and police response.
The students told Lt. Anthony Moore, with the fire investigation division, that they “were pulling a prank and had no intention of hurting anyone.”
Chemicals in the bottles could have seriously injured anyone close to the explosion, the lieutenant told the students.
Women assaulted; purses stolen
Two women told police that, after they pulled into the parking lot of Christy’s Sports Bar on Brainerd Road, two men held them at gunpoint and stole their purses.
Just before 2 a.m. Tuesday, Lawanda Reese, 44, and Bonitta Thompson, also 44, pulled into the lot in Ms. Thompson’s gray Ford Explorer, according to a Chattanooga police report.
Ms. Reese, the front-seat passenger, told police that, as she was getting out of the vehicle, a 6-foot, 200-pound man in black pants and a black hooded shirt stepped up to the vehicle, pulled a revolver out and told her “to give him the purse or he would kill her.”
She grabbed the gun and the man hit her on the forehead with the gun, took her purse and ran behind the building, according to the report.
During the incident, Ms. Thompson said another man, 5-feet-6 inches tall, 150 pounds and wearing the same type of clothing, pulled out a semiautomatic pistol and also told her to give him her purse or “he would kill her.”
Ms. Thompson told police she gave the man her purse and he ran behind the building, as well.
According to the women’s statements, the men stole $1,036 worth of items, including jewelry, a cell phone and a designer purse.