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Disgusting Vandalism at Old Forge High School

OLD FORGE, Pa. — A school in Lackawanna County was littered with spray-painted swastikas, offensive names, and even human waste. Officers said Joshua Rohl...

OLD FORGE, Pa. -- A school in Lackawanna County was littered with spray-painted swastikas, offensive names, and even human waste.

Officers said Joshua Rohland, 18, of Old Forge, admitted to wrecking the high school and said he fantasized about doing it. Rohland somewhat bizarrely told officers they can hold no laws against him because he is a sovereign citizen.

Police said Rohland made his way into the unlocked high school around 12:30 a.m. Sunday. Officers said Rohland drew more than 40 offensive pictures and phrases in spray paint and pooped on the boy's locker room floor. He also broke a window in the elementary school. Surveillance cameras caught him giving the middle finger to security.

"Definitely somebody with no brain. I mean, why would you walk around the school with cameras everywhere? I mean, it's just crazy. There's cameras everywhere," Charlie Mairia said.

"I just couldn't believe it! I don't see any sense of doing that. Why would you want to go into the school and paint stuff on the floor of the basketball gym? It just doesn't make any sense," Steve Shumbres said.

Police said they caught up with Rohland three blocks away from the school after a report came into the 911 center saying that someone was smashing car windows on Edith Street. When he was taken into custody, Rohland had a knife and illegal narcotics.

Tiffany Cianci has a daughter going into fifth grade at Old Forge Elementary. She was disappointed to hear the news.

"I guess we just have to come more together as a community and support these kids because we have families that are doing really well in this community, and we have families that are not," Cianci said.

Carlos Concha is about to be in eighth grade at the middle school.

"I think it's pretty offensive for the things he wrote, and obviously you're not supposed to do that and it's not something you should do," Concha said.

Rohland has been charged with institutional vandalism, criminal mischief, and burglary among other things. He is locked up in the Lackawanna County jail on $50,000 bail.

Newswatch 16 reached out to the school district for a comment, but we have not heard back.

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