KRQE
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — He’s convincing. A prankster has been able to talk employees into vandalizing their own businesses. Now, police are investigating.
It’s happened at least twice now. Managers say their employees were pretty upset. While they say they’re working to trace these phone calls, police say it’s going to be tough to find the person responsible. It was close to 2:30 in the morning when the woman who worked the front desk at the Econo Lodge on Carlisle heard the fire alarm go off. Motel management say they have protocol for shutting off false alarms. They say the woman was half-way through the process when she got a phone call from a man claiming to be with AFD.
He told her there was a problem with the sensor and she needed to break out the windows to turn off the alarm. Yet, once she put a flashlight through the glass, the man called back. He told her she had been pranked. “Breaking out the windows of your restaurant or hotel or any other business is not proper procedure for turning off an alarm,” says APD Officer Tanner Tixier. Yet, it didn’t stop another employee at the Red Roof Inn on Candelaria from breaking out one of their windows when they got a similar call overnight.
Full story: Prankster convinces employees to vandalize businesses