Despite repeated warnings from parents, school officials and the police, Dunwoody High School’s Junior/Senior Homecoming Week Wars are in full swing again this year, resulting in property destruction – as well as the promised consequences.
In a surprising twist, four students ticketed on Monday night by police started a GoFundMe page to raise money to pay their fines.
Last year, bags of trash, dirty kitty litter, food, bags of flour, dog food, eggs, and other debris were thrown into students’ yards, and in one case, a homeowner reported that someone dumped a maggot-filled deer carcass in her yard.
Several homeowners reported pranksters caused thousands of dollars of damage to their properties.
After last year’s incidents, the Dunwoody City Council discussed how they could stop future vandalism.
“Regarding this year’s junior-senior prank disaster, I sure would like to see if we can make it stop from happening next year,” Mayor Lynn Deutsch said at a November 2023 meeting. “Even if the people choose not to press charges, I think we should encourage them to report it because they often know the teenagers.”
Proactive measures this year included an in-person visit to both DHS junior and senior classes in early September by Dunwoody Police Officer Theresa Hernandez, who warned them that all illegal activity would result in consequences for the perpetrators.
Despite that, several homeowners reported on social media Sep. 10 that their homes were littered with eggs, chicken, flour, ketchup, chocolate syrup and garbage. One person reported that the police had been contacted and an incident report filed. Rough Draft Atlanta has filed an open records request for a report about the alleged vandalism.
The promised “consequences” also occurred on Monday night when four students each received $200 tickets by police right before they were allegedly about to toilet paper, throw flour and eggs at someone’s house.
On a public GoFundMe post, the student organizer called him and his friends “innocent children.”
“It was our high school homecoming week, and our friends were out hitting houses for junior-senior wars,” the post said. “The four of us innocent children were outside our cars with flour and toilet paper, but we hadn’t done anything yet.”
After a female police officer stopped the group and inquired about their presence, “We said we were about to leave some stuff on someone’s driveway and we hadn’t done anything yet, but our friends did something to a house a couple of minutes away.”
The organizer said the group was then “sat down by the big scary cop who tells us that we don’t wanna be put into jail.”
The student said they each received a $200 ticket because they possessed “three pieces of toilet paper and two eggs” that didn’t belong to them.
Rough Draft is also investigating the nature of the charges.
The GoFundMe had gathered $123 in mostly $5-dollar increments before, without explanation, it was suspended from taking donations. Of the 22 donors, all but one provided their names on the page.
Erika Harris, the mother of a DHS senior, said there is a misperception about what one would consider a harmless prank and a destructive one.
“I’m not sure that the students involved understand that while being the ‘prankster’ is fun for them, it’s the exact opposite experience for the families on the receiving end – especially watching how these pranks have moved to a level of vandalism,” she said.
“DHS needs a shift in what homecoming week looks like, and, unfortunately, it may take some students facing potentially serious consequences to make that change,” she continued.
Deutsch repeated that sentiment, saying that there are better ways to foster competition between the junior and senior classes.
“I wish the students spending time, energy and money could come up with a more creative way to challenge each other,” she said. “These ‘pranks’ are more destructive than funny.”
This is a developing story and will be updated when more information is available.
