Here’s one of the more ridiculous stories you’ll read this year – an 18-year old in Ohio has been charged with felony counts of impersonating a peace officer and telecommunications fraud after claiming to be a state senator on multiple occasions.
According to the Toledo Blade, Izaha Akins claimed to be a state senator on multiple occasions. Akins said that he was the replacement for Ohio Republican David Burke, who he claimed had resigned due to health issues. Except, you know, Burke wasn’t ill and never resigned his office. Incredibly, a local high school bought Akins’ story, let him tour the school, and allowed him to take Burke’s place speaking to a class.
Mr. Akins rendered Wyandot County red-faced after he was allowed to speak to a high school American Government class while using his own name and claiming to have been appointed to replace state Sen. David Burke (R., Marysville), who, he told officials, had resigned because of illness.
Authorities said Mr. Akins got a tour of the school and addressed the class at Mohawk High School in Sycamore on Dec. 15.
Mohawk Schools Superintendent Ken Ratliff said the young man fooled the teacher, the principal, and apparently everyone else he came in contact with that day.
The school didn’t think twice about Akins’ story until *one month later*, when Burke showed up to give his previously scheduled speech.
Akins’ claimed he carried out his plan because of concerns over school security.
Mr. Akins told The Blade concerns about school security tend to focus on “urban schools,” and that he was concerned about “the small community effect — they think that this can never happen to us.”
“I was duping to prove a point, that these kinds of things can happen. They could easily have Googled me and they didn’t,” Mr. Akins said.
The story behind how Akins actually got into the school to replace Burke is both ridiculous and alarming. He reportedly found out about Burke’s speech (how he found out is still unknown), called the teacher of the class that Burke was supposed to give his speech to, and told him the story of Burke resigning for health reasons and him being named as his replacement. The teacher, Henry Stobbs, fell for it without much question.
He said the chagrined teacher dropped his skepticism after Mr. Akins said that he was second in line for the appointment after the first choice had declined. He told the teacher he was the youngest state senator ever.
“Mr. Stobbs said that nothing he heard there made him think this guy didn’t know what he was doing,” Mr. Ratliff said about the class presentation.
Akins also had someone call a local Ford dealership to arrange transportation for the visit. It was provided after a phone call to the school to verify the speaking engagement.
Here’s what blows my mind the most about this – everyone just took Akins at has word. No one at the school made any involvement to independently verify his story, which would have taken all of five minutes. It’s incredible, and just a bit terrifying.
In the future, that should be taken care of thanks to a new policy that will be implemented by the district.
The incident has prompted the superintendent to order more stringent security, by requiring a phone call to the sponsoring agency of any visitors to verify their identity, Mr. Ratliff said.
Oh, well at least that will be taken care of in the future. Praise be!
