Centre Daily Times

(based on a true story)

STATE COLLEGE - A University student was killed in a firefight between himself and State College police Tuesday.

Andrew Pierce, of Erie, Pennsylvania, was contacted by law enforcement at his residence in 412A Holmes Hall, who were serving a warrant for his arrest. Pierce was charged with racketeering, fraud, conspiracy, possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, and public indecency.

Deputy Martin of the Centre County Sherriff's Department said that the former two offenses were, "regrettably, the more severe of the crimes."

On April 19, Resident Advisor Jeff Erb reported a "number of students routinely coming in and out of [Pierce's] room." A thorough investigation concluded that Pierce had been running a small-scale grocery store from his dorm room.

Further research found Pierce's website at http://www.vulgarity.org. Investigators found a passage describing his intent to "totally get tagged by a CATA bus. If you get hit by two tires, you get free tuition, I'm thinking a mirror or something to the back of the head is at least worth free housing." University officials confirmed that Pierce had, in fact, been hit by a CATA bus and rewarded an undisclosed number of meal points as an out-of-court settlement.

Continued investigation of the Vulgarity website revealed the following post:

"Fuckin', I've got fat meal points now, dude. Lately I've been hitting up Louie's and stocking up on shit, if you're trying to get some Boyardee for a quarter, I'll totally hook it up."

According to a Sheriff's Department incident report, Pierce stated that "[the police] should totally be more concerned about this big bag of weed than some [flipping] EasyMac." When police attempted to restrain him, Pierce reportedly began shouting incoherently and removed several articles of clothing, at which point police opened fire.

"We believe that the suspect was wearing a gun-hat," a Department spokesperson said at a conference on Wednesday. When questioned about the "gun-hat" and the existence thereof, the spokesperson replied that "Greg totally heard about some dudes making gun-watches and Chris was pretty sure [Pierce] was wearing a gun-shoe." Some critics questioned whether deadly force was necessary in a case where a resisting suspect is only suspected to possess a gun-hat. The Department put these concerns to rest, saying "You totally need to nail the gun-hat guys before they can take off the hat and the gun pops out. Like, that's how they get you with the gun-hats. This one guy I knew, Bruce, had this guy cornered, and the guy was like, 'oh, that's cool, I'll surrender,' and when Bruce goes to cuff him, the guy just drops his pants and a gun comes out and shoots Bruce in the eye. He's still around, apparently the gun only fired blanks, but it was kind of, you know, a wake up call. We can't be too careful, you know. With the gun-hats."

A forensics team identified the alleged "gun-hat" as a Flex-Fit brand baseball cap, officially licensed University merchandise. Their report stated that the hat only posed a threat as potential "brorape paraphernalia." The investigators stressed that their report is "available in alternative media."

Pierce was pronounced dead on the scene. The contents of his illegal supermarket (dubbed "Ku-Klux-Klanahan's") were donated to the Trash to Treasure program.

A service will be held on Friday in Warnock Commons. Those wishing to attend should contact the funeral director at (814) 555-5672.

This post is the product of Greg Somerville's imagination.