The mother of a Clements High School student who was arrested and charged with burglarizing the school and evading arrest spoke to the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees Monday night, pleading with the members to allow her son to participate in the upcoming graduation ceremony.
Brian Lawrence Warshauer, an 18-year-old Clements High School senior, was arrested May 12 along with Ali Shah Lilani, 17, and Taylor Michael Ashford, 18. All three were charged with burglary of a building, engaging in organized criminal activity and evading arrest after police were called to the Clements campus around 12:10 a.m. after several teenagers were seen running out of the back of the school. Nothing inside the school was reported missing.
Warshauer was also charged with possession of a controlled substance.
Many in the community have said the incident was a “senior prank” that went horribly wrong.
Due to the arrests, the three seniors will not be allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony at the Toyota Center June 3.
“My son understands there are consequences,” Julia Warshauer told the board. “Yes, he is physically 18 years old, but first and foremost he is a teenager, he is not a grown man. He made an unwise decision to participate in what was meant to be an innocent high school joke with absolutely no means of hurting anyone or anything and certainly not with criminal intent.”
Julia Warshauer said her son and his friends call Clements “home,” and her son has been a part of the school’s football team since his freshman year, participating in many school functions.
Julia Warshauer asked that the board reconsider the district’s decision not to let the boys walk on graduation day.
“I ask you to please think about when you were teenagers and the mistakes you made and how you were given the chance to learn and grow to be the persons and leaders you are today,” she said. “Regardless, our sons will always be proud to have attended and graduated from Clements High School. Please allow them the chance to throw their cap and tassel with their fellow students.”
Before this goes off into another east vs west side, we all need to remember: it is our school district and pranks like this have a way of affecting all of us. I do agree that they should be allowed to graduate because they have earned that. There is something else they have earned: when you break the law, there are consequences, period. So, let them finish up with school, then treat them no differently than you would a first-time offender (if this is their first time). I think things like this usually get someone off on deferred adjudication, some community service hours, have the parents pay for any and all damages, or let the young men work it off through the school district. It does nothing to take away something they have worked for all their lives to earn. We don’t lose our jobs if we get caught speeding. That is too severe. It only causes bitterness and resentment toward authority and could cause us to see these three in a more threatening situation later on down the road. So, man-up gentlemen, get your act straight and learn the next time what “innocent” pranks can cause. Congratulations on graduation, enjoy your special night and go see the judge the next day!
Those students need to get what they deserve. Students at Clements always seem to get away with things since it’s so suburbia. The parents at CHS need to realize that their precious kids are not that great and they need to have consequences for their actions. If those students chose to break into the school and be dumb enough to get caught, they need to not walk or participate in any graduation or Senior activities. It’s about time something happened at Clements. The BOT better not back down from their decision.
Please, can race or color be left out, for once? Teens throughout the district, east or west,north or south, sometimes do stupid things. And stupid things have consequences. Whatever their intentions, they broke the law by breaking and entering and there is no way policemen could have known what their intentions were, nor should they care. I hold law enforcement personnel in high esteem as I lost a brother-in-law who served as an undercover DEA agent, serving to help rid this country of drugs. His son is now a proud police officer for HPD. Having their pictures plastered on the local TV channels,not going to their prom, and not participating in graduation will sting for a while, but, looking down the road, I hope these kids learn a valuable lesson and move forward in becoming productive citizens. THINK ABOUT IT! This may have saved their lives!
Has everyone forgotten that one of the boys was also caught with a controlled substance? If nothing else, that is breaking the law.
This is the same one that was caught with a controlled substance. I say don’t let him walk. He needs to realize that your parents can’t fix everything for you.
Just another 18 yr old — and he could have been in Clements parking lot – this 18 yr old had a gun.
An 18-year-old Richmond resident was arrested last night after a 911 hang-up call lead police to the suspect in a Rosenberg parking lot.
According to reports, Rosenberg police officer Shayne Macha was dispatched to 4719 Reading Road around 10:36 p.m. when a caller hung-up after calling 911.
When Macha arrived he found 18-year-old Richmond resident Duntavier McCullough and 23-year-old Rosenberg resident Nicholas Toland in the parking lot with a large flat-screen television. Macha discovered that the television was recently reported stolen through the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office.
An 18-year-old Richmond resident was arrested last night after a 911 hang-up call lead police to the suspect in a Rosenberg parking lot.
I’d bet they did know they were chasing students. One of the 3 did in fact give up the names at school which is why the district handled the others. I see no relevance of Missouric City, Willowridge or Marshall high schools to this case. You seem to want to make this a class/race issue instead of a common sense issue.
RangerParent:
Common sense says you don’t break the law in order to pull a prank.
Common sense says you don’t run from police.
Common sense says once you’re caught and don’t like the punishment or the attention you’re receiving because of breaking the law, you DO NOT whine in a public meeting about it in order to get out of it.
Common sense should tell 17- and 18-year-olds that breaking the law will be judged in an adult court of law = not juvenile.
Common sense says that these criminals will likely end up with probation/community service for their crimes.
Common sense says that if they have the opportunity to have their record wiped clean by completing said community service/probation without any further lawbreaking, they should do so. If not, perhaps they aren’t just the “good kid pranksters” bill of goods that people are trying to sell about them.
As for the race thing: it’s already there – me mentioning it didn’t create the perception a’tall.
RangerParent:
By the way, you already made a very class/race-related comment earlier. You said “the school doesn’t store any gold or large sums of money”, so you don’t understand why the police DID THEIR JOB and arrested the perpetrators. By making that statement, it’s pretty easy to see that you feel poor people’s residences/small businesses shouldn’t be worried about by law enforcement since they likely don’t have “large sums of money or gold” in their possessions. If that’s not a class/race statement, then I don’t know what is. Calling ME or others out starting a race/class is really a case of the pot calling the kettle African-American.
“If that’s not a class/race statement, then I don’t know what is.”
You obviously don’t.
Lurker:
Please enlighten me and the readers here. Please tell me what I misread between the lines of his statement.
Well let me reiterate, you made a point that if this incident happened at Willowridge or Marshall all these Clements parents would not be whining. You are probably right, the Willowridge and Marshall parents would be voicing their opinions or whining in your eyes. Again, what difference does Willowridge, Marshall or the other side of hiway 6 have to do with this incident?
Just for the record, the controlled substance found in the students car was his siblings prescription for adderall (sp?). No mention if tests were done to determine if any was in his system. In my opinion this is sensationalized news reporting, sorry if mispelled. Again plastering their faces on the 10 o’clock news and listing the “controlled substance” as if it were pot/cocaine/meth, etc. is nonsense in my opinion. They made bad choices and 3 of the 17 or so got caught by the police and are paying dearly for a senior prank gone bad. Yeah ok, the police never know what is going to happen when they get a call, but nothing did except for a bunch of Clements seniors running like crazy to get away. As I mentioned the other day, there should be many miserable jobs that they could be forced to perform over the hot summer months, community service & fines. In light of the stuff that goes on in ours and surrounding coummunities, I really don’t consider this that newsworthy, especially on TV. Just don’t see why the DA, police dept. and FBISD can’t come up with punishment to match the crime.
I don’t fault the Mother for attempting to get her kid a chance to walk at graduation. He can still face the punishment.
As for common sense you seem to have an axe to grind and I can’t help you with that. I have never looked at this forum before much less commented on it. I have a couple of teenagers and they have never gotten into any trouble but they are teenagers and they don’t always think everything out like an adult does.
The gold/jewelry comment was sarcasm. The point I unsuccessfully tried to make was that a school was not very fertile ground for burglary.
He/she was just trying to say a school isn’t Fort Knox. It has nothing to do with race, class or income.
RangerParent:
You tried to make a joke of gold/jewelry, but in fact the school has millions of dollars of athletic equipment, computers, projectors, etc. that DO get stolen from time to time. So it’s not as if there’s nothing worth stealing from a school – which the authorities are also aware of too. Hence, their response with so many officers.
I also heard that the “controlled substance” was a legit prescription – but unless he had a reason to have it on him at midnight that makes it questionable. If it’s not even his own (I’ve heard both yes/no), then it really looks bad (Hey, can you stop at Walgreens and get your brother’s Adderall before you break into the school for the prank?). If it’s legit, it will be dropped. If he was tested for it because it’s NOT his and it comes back positive, then he’ll get what he deserves. Look, prescription medicine abuse is a Top 3 substance abuse issue for teens because of its availability, so it’s no laughing matter.
As for the axe to grind – why? I’ve got no horses in this raises, save may taxes, so you’re off on that. The biggest issue I have is that so many people here, and in society, are so willing to write off so much teenage crime as “stupid mistakes by good kids” that they don’t realize how different things are now than when they were teens or even before that. It’s a different world and the more we enable idiocy by just “moving on” the more adult stupidity we’ll continue to see.
please, if this was willowridge or marshall, everyone here would be singing a different tune. the kids broke the law. they are being punished accordingly
I agree that punishments should fit the crimes and this is a case of prosecution gone bad. (What ever happened to criminial trespassing?) However, I hope all you parents crying say this is a prank gone bad and these are teenagers, remember that the next time you sit on a jury or are quick to criticize other children that may not look like these kids at Clements or be fromt the same walks of life.
This is sad and I don’t agree with it. But just know this happens every day in our community. Where everything our kids do is considered criminal and the cops are called and charges are pressed against our kids for things that are typically punished and handled by the school administrators on other campuses.
Hey Ranger Parent, I hope you have the same feelings next time an innocent teenager tries to break into your home. Remember “it’s just a teenage prank”.
Not sure about the relevance of a senior prank and breaking into a home relate but you have your opinion.
There was a total of about 17 kids doing this and only 3 are being held responsible. While the only details I know are what the media has reported and what I have heard from kids, why is not everyone being held to the same standard?
I can’t speak for anyone but myself and I believe this has gotten out of hand.
The slowest three got caught. It’s only “out of hand” because the other 14 weren’t mature enough to admit their mistake. I honestly believe that had the entire group – 16? 17 18? – just come forward and admitted everything, there’s NO WAY the DA would be charging them with anything at all. But when you want to play the legal games like these kids chose to do, this is a risk you take.
I still say they’ll get community service and probation – which is fine with me. Letting them off the hook completely, in my opinion, is ridiculous and out of the question. Why enable/encourage stupid choices?
I’m told all students were seen on tape and one of the boys caught gave up all of their names. All were removed from school and will not participate in graduation or prom. I believe the district handled the 14 or so and the police dept. the 3 caught that night. They should be held accountable but the mug shots on TV is a bit much. They are not crimminals. Plenty of tough outside jobs exist in the city that could serve as punishment along with probation.
I guess it may be semantics to you, but they DID break the law and were caught doing it. That does make them criminals. I’ll bet that the TV mug shots was more a social boon to them than a social downfall. Criminal mug shots get shown on TV every night. Nobody probably remembered after 2 days anyway.
“Every choice has a consequence! The mystery behind choices and consequences is that we often don’t realize the magnitude of what we do until it’s too late. Then, we often wish we could rewind the tape and choose something different.”
What if they were caught breaking into a house or store at night? Is breaking into the school any different?
Why did his mother let him out so late at night?
1. What do you mean, “rewind the tape”? ;)
2. It’s pretty apparent that mom has no real problem with her son’s behavior and is attempting to curry public favor on her lawbreaking “prankster” son. Don’t expect any parenting accountability from her on this one.
Just curious how they put the officers lives at risk? What do you expect a bunch of kids to do? Of course they ran, not saying it was responsible but they are teenagers. I have a couple and it frustrates me but they just have to grow up. yeah, graduation is a priveledge and they screwed up. My mantra as you call it is, the punishment should match the crime. All this news stuff and the DA filing charges for attempted burglary and organized crime activity is nuts. What were they attempting to steal? Organized crime activitiy = lets chain some desks together in the commons, are you kidding me? Put them on some outdoor sweat city detail for the summer and make em wear white suits, but crimminal charges is harsh.
I agree with Julie and hope this can happen. This situation seems to have gotten out of hand, unless there is evidence of something very bad not reported through the media. Posting these kids pictures on the 10 o’clock news is ridiculous. FBISD and the district attourney’s office need to resolve this. Was there any destruction of property, firearms, bombs, etc.? If not, lets move on. Surely, some form of discipline that better fits this attempted senior prank can be developed.
They will all likely (and probably should) get probation IF there’s nothing else “bad” involved, as you mentioned. As for graduation: walking the stage at the ceremony is a privilege and not a right. It’s a sad situation, but they DID break not only the law but school discipline codes of conduct – which I’m pretty sure lists out “breaking and entering into school” as a serious offense with serious punishment. They put themselves in this situation – and then tried to run from cops, putting the cops at risk – who didn’t know if they were armed, high, etc. It’s a little early for to take on a “let’s move on” mantra.
Yes there are consequences to pay when bad (dumb) descisions are made. In this case he goes to jail and is not allowed to participate in graduation. Now maybe next time he won’t make a bad decision. Your son put the officers lives at risk by running from them. Stick with the decision FBISD.
ummmm..how were the officers lives put at risk because they had to chase someone? sounds like that is a part of their job description.
oh I am sorry I guess we just pay officers to talk on their cell phones or write tickets.
Really? Literally running down criminals is a “normal” activity for cops? What neighborhood do YOU live in? What if they had drawn their guns during the chase and a student been shot?
Oh yeah, you’d be blaming police for shooting an alleged felon, er, “prankster” and howling about a lawsuit – which EVERYONE has to pay for! Believe it or not, “kids” aren’t entitled to break the law in the name of a prank and expect things to just go away.
Well who did the police think they were chasing at the school? I do not know of any large sums of money or gold stored at the school. The point was how were the officers lives in danger because they had to chase some teenagers, which by the way they caught 3 out of 17. Hopefully the police won’t start shooting at someone without being fired upon or seeing a gun which was not the case here.
The point IS that police NEVER know for sure who they’re chasing, and because of that their lives are at risk. THAT’S when guns may get drawn. What MAY have been stored at the school is irrelevant – should the officers just said “heck, it’s only a school, just let it go and move on”?
Look, my kids tell me the 3 “caught” ones decided to take the fall to protect the other more “important” students still involved in student activities. Some may call that loyalty, I call it stupidity in this case because the three are all old enough to be charged as adults now and not juveniles.
slyouth is correct; had this been from the east side of Missouri City/Fort Bend ISD then everyone would want federal incarceration yesterday. Funny how things seem to change as you drive west on Highway 6…..