The “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” theme song is one of the most beloved TV jingles, but when a receptionist didn’t know the words to the popular tune it sent a Pennsylvania school into lockdown.
It all started when a receptionist for a doctor’s office gave 19-year-old Travis Clawson a call on Thursday only to be greeted with the student’s voicemail. The receptionist was waiting to leave a message when the student began singing the “Fresh Prince” theme song.
Most people would immediately recognize the theme song and even sing along to it, but apparently this receptionist hadn’t heard of the jingle and ended up twisting the lyrics into a school threat.
When the Ambridge Area High School student sang the words “shooting some b-ball outside of the school,” the receptionist heard “shooting people outside of the school.”
She immediately took action to prevent what she thought would be another tragic school shooting by reporting the so-called threat to police.
According to the local news outlet, WPXI, the school was forced into lockdown for half an hour while police searched for the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” fan.
Eventually everyone realized it was a big misunderstanding, but apparently the teenager’s father isn’t ready to just write it off as a simple mistake that can be forgotten about.
“An innocent young man was embarrassed,” Clawson’s father said. “How is he supposed to go back to school and face his classmates?”
While it certainly was a scary situation to get arrested for a threat against your school, there really isn’t anything that the police did wrong in this situation. They were simply trying to keep the schools safe. Can you imagine the backlash they would have received if they didn’t respond to a possible school shooting threat? In the midst of so much gun violence making the news, it would be idiotic of them not to take any threat seriously.
The only extra step they should have taken was actually listening to the tape themselves and then someone might have realized that the “threat” was just a young boy singing along to a catchy tune.
“As always, the safety of our students and staff are at the forefront of our concern,” the Ambridge Area School District Superintendent Erv Weischedel said in a letter that was sent home to all the parents. “While this situation can be considered to be a false alarm, it was an excellent opportunity to test our emergency procedures. The procedures in place were efficient and quickly implemented and proved to be successful.”
Of course both police and the doctor’s office were embarrassed about the situation, but are thankful that the school shooting threat was nothing more than a misunderstanding.
