BARNEGAT, N.J. - It’s the case of the nonexistent ninja. Public schools in Barnegat were locked down briefly after someone reported seeing a ninja running through the woods behind an elementary school.
Turns out the ninja was actually a camp counselor dressed in black karate garb and carrying a plastic sword.
Police tell the Asbury Park Press the man was late to a costume-themed day at a nearby middle school.
The lockdown began shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday and lasted until 9:30.
I use to laugh at you paranoid amurricans, but this time I’d been alarmed too by reports about a guy derranged enough to think he’s a ninja and possibly armed.
Maybe it didn’t sound so downright silly to me because I vaguely remembered a case that I have now googled: In 1990 two guys here were condemned to almost 400 years for a dozen rapes and robberies commited on couples in some woods, while dressed and armed like ninjas. And that was a reduced sentence because they were pronounced “mentally unstable”.
