Quicker than you could say, "Holy caped crusader!" cops were at the scene searching for... wait for it... Batman. The gullible administrators who bought the kid's story defended their over-reaction like so in an Associated Press story:
Nedda Shafir, a spokeswoman for the Cave Creek Unified School District, said putting all the schools on lockdown was a precautionary measure. "We didn't want to take any chances," Shafir said. "We just don't want to put anyone at risk."
Shafir is clearly not up-to-date on her comic books. Batman, as it turns out, is a good guy. Yet the spokeswoman showed not concern over school staff members like lunch lady Poison Ivy, speech therapist The Penguin, grounds maintenance worker Clayface, AEA union negotiator Harvey "Two-Face" Dent, third-grade art teacher The Riddler, Principal Selina "Catwoman" Kyle or physical education teacher The Scarecrow.
Shafir described these district employees as "model school staff, and fine, upstanding, dues-paying members of the Arizona Education Association as well as the national NEA.
Superintendent The Joker could not be reached for comment on this story, but did issue a press release inviting reporters covering the alleged Batman sighting to "gather around the flag pole" this Tuesday for an event that he promised would have concerned citizens "dying with laughter and leaving with smiles on their faces... forever!"
Sounds like fun.
Putting the jokes aside for a second, I wonder if a certain Batman-spotting youth might have been ill-prepared for a test when he made the report of seeing "Batman" run across school grounds.
Shame on the administrator who fell for it.