--- title: Woman Arrested For Terrible School Shooting April Fools Joke description: School shootings are never a joke canonical: https://time.com/47056/mothers-april-fools-day-prank-on-her-daughter-backfires-very-very-badly/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-03T12:00:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:08:26.260Z og:title: Mother's April Fools' Day Prank On Her Daughter Backfires Very, Very Badly og:description: School shootings are never a joke og:url: https://time.com/47056/mothers-april-fools-day-prank-on-her-daughter-backfires-very-very-badly/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd80125986ed92c2a/6986885fe53aba49534d1ca3/selfie-smartphone.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Woman using a smartphone og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Mother's April Fools' Day Prank On Her Daughter Backfires Very, Very Badly twitter:description: School shootings are never a joke twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd80125986ed92c2a/6986885fe53aba49534d1ca3/selfie-smartphone.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Mother's April Fools' Day Prank On Her Daughter Backfires Very, Very Badly by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Apr 3, 2014 12:00 PM UTC  Colourful Nails Colourful NailsGetty Images by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Apr 3, 2014 12:00 PM UTC File this under bad ideas. Angela Timmons thought it would be a great April Fools’ Day prank to text her daughter in New York that she could hear gunfire from inside her office at Virginia College in South Carolina and was “hiding for her own safety.” When the 54-year old woman failed to respond to any of her daughter’s text messages, the young woman called the police to report the incident. [According to The Smoking Gun](http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/april-fool-arrested), police raced to the Spartanburg, SC., college campus to investigate the school shooting, only to discover that it was all a very bad joke and no shooting had occurred. Timmons told Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office deputies that she “sent the text as an April Fools joke and that she has done such jokes on April Fools in the past.” The punchline of her “joke”? Timmons was arrested and booked into the county jail, where she is being held on several charges, including aggravated breach of the peace and disturbing a school. \[Via [The Smoking Gun](http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/college-shooting-april-fools-joke-675432)\] **MORE**: [The Best April Fools’ Pranks of 2014](http://time.com/43940/the-best-april-fools-pranks-of-2014/) **MORE**: [7 April Fools’ Pranks We Wish We Saw Today](http://time.com/45391/april-fools-pranks-we-wish-we-saw-today/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/47056/mothers-april-fools-day-prank-on-her-daughter-backfires-very-very-badly/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/47056/mothers-april-fools-day-prank-on-her-daughter-backfires-very-very-badly/"},"headline":"Mother's April Fools' Day Prank On Her Daughter Backfires Very, Very Badly","datePublished":"2014-04-03T12:00:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:08:26.260Z","description":"School shootings are never a joke","url":"https://time.com/47056/mothers-april-fools-day-prank-on-her-daughter-backfires-very-very-badly/","keywords":["Newsfeed","society","Crime","Education","nation","Pranks","April Fool's Day"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd80125986ed92c2a/6986885fe53aba49534d1ca3/selfie-smartphone.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd80125986ed92c2a/6986885fe53aba49534d1ca3/selfie-smartphone.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Woman using a smartphone","caption":"Woman using a smartphone","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/47056/mothers-april-fools-day-prank-on-her-daughter-backfires-very-very-badly/","name":"Mother's April Fools' Day Prank On Her Daughter Backfires Very, Very Badly"}}]}] ```