The group of individuals who planned to steal the Chimmy from the SixThirteen Day Parade have been identified as Whalien University students. (Congrats, Whalien!)
Their plan was kept under wraps and went public only after their mug shots were posted online and the details leaked on social media.
Hello Namkanda got a chance to speak with two of the students and as it turns out, according to them, they were simply trying to pull off “the most goated prank the freshman class had ever seen" by showing up with the Chimmy on the back quad that night, then taking the balloon to the bonfire party being held down the road at Park Field.
Well that is quite the task. The Chimmy balloon, aka “Dabbing Chimmy” is 63ft tall. And we only saw about 15 mugshots. Our staff wasn’t sure on those specifications and that math, so we reached out to the parade organizers.
“Good luck with that,” said Eun-soo, a balloon captain. “That’s an almost 800 pound balloon. Dabbing Chimmy has about 60 handlers, his head is huge.” She laughed then. “Actually I’d like to see that. Should have let them try.”
Her expression straightened into a sharp frown. “I’m kidding of course, hell no. Chimmy’s a half a million dollar balloon, more in won of course. And that’s just how much it costs to inflate him. Eff those kids.”
Well, they were ‘effed’ indeed, Eun-soo.
The pranksters were stopped by the NKPD early morning, attempting to gain entry to the parade staging area. According to police, they dressed in maintenance uniforms and carried fake credentials. They’d passed beyond the public areas into parade-staff only sections. However, they were spotted acting suspiciously. There were a lot of group selfies being taken and high fives going around, perhaps one high five too many for a group of maintenance workers on their way to the job at 4:47am. And when security staff flagged the group for questioning, their responses didn’t quite hold up. When some of them begin running away from the area, NKPD was alerted and officers quickly apprehended the wannabe thieves before any more shenanigans could take place.
Investigators say they intended to get away with the partially inflated balloon under the cover of darkness, apparently having devised a way to finish inflating the Chimmy to his full glory once they got to campus.
"This was a foolish stunt that could have endangered people, and property," said another parade organizer Taeri. “The balloons are not toys, they can obviously be dangerous. It’s why we have trained handlers. It’s also why we take parade security so seriously.”
No charges have been announced yet.
