Man arrested for wearing Star Wars Stormtrooper costume outside school

[RandySF]

LYNN — Salem, not Lynn, is typically the place where people walk around in costumes — and sometimes get into trouble.

But on Wednesday afternoon, a Lynn elementary school was briefly locked down after the principal called 911 to report a man with a gun walking around outside the school.

The man, identified by police as George Cross, 40, of Lynn, was dressed in a white plastic "Star Wars" stormtrooper costume, and the gun was not real. But Lynn Police spokesman Lt. Rick Donnelly said that "the way things are today, you can't have that."

The call came from the principal of the Brickett Elementary School on Lewis Street (Route 1A) at around 1:30 p.m., as classes were about to wind up for the day, said Donnelly.

Donnelly said the principal thought the gun might be plastic, but since she wasn't certain, she erred on the side of caution.
Cross was arrested on charges of disturbing a school and loitering within 1,000 feet of a school.


http://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/lynn-man-s-star-wars-stormtrooper-costume-triggers-school-lockdown/article_f2bd343b-8e0f-5a12-977d-d2e9227cdd72.html

[Warren DeMontague]

1. I wonder what he was looking for.

[gordianot]

2. In the movies the white star wars armor never seemed to work.

Shoot me with your blaster and I fall down.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. And stormtroopers can't hit the broadside of a barn unless Darth Vader is right there

to walk over the bodies.

[gordianot]

4. If the entire get up were black I would have been worried but white armor?

He would have been a pushover.