YouTube ‘Prankster’ Removes Stop Signs, Is Charged with Felony, Asks Fans for Money
Charles Ross, aka RossCreations, is charged with grand theft and faces up to five years in prison.
If you're unfamiliar with the scourge of the internet that is the YouTube "prankster" (and if you really are, I envy you) they are a segment of YouTube personality that mainly caters to prepubescent boys looking to live vicariously through public displays of often sexually and/or racially charged stupidity. One of these professional dingbats, RossCreations, has apparently landed himself in some seriously hot water over a "prank" in which he daringly removes a couple of stop signs from an intersection he deemed did not need any.
In a video that, if anything, proves the adage that you can pretty much go anywhere and do anything as long as you act like you belong, wear a high-visibility jacket and a hardhat (bonus points for clipboard in hand), RossCreations, whose real name is Charles Ross, is seen sporting the aforementioned official costume of construction/mischief standing around a three-way suburban intersection. "Hey guys, as a self appointed city traffic flow coordinator, I think it's time now to remove some of these unnecessary stop signs. Like these, they're impeding the flow of traffic, they need to go." Armed with a ladder and a wrench, Ross proceeds to remove two of the stop signs from the intersection. Like cavemen discovering the effects of fire for the first time, Ross and his cameraman then watch the amazingly profound results of their brazen stunt—cars approaching the intersection were...not stopping.
The video then cuts to a shot of a disheveled-looking Ross being escorted out of his home in handcuffs seemingly in the middle of the night by a couple of uniformed police officers. "It's for the stop sign," Ross mumbles to the camera. He then reveals that he's been charged with a third degree felony for grand theft after spending about two days in jail. If convicted, he apparently faces a maximum of five years in prison. "I don't have much money for legal fees or a lawyer and, so your help would be very meaningful to me," Ross says, putting a hand to his ear. He estimates the total cost of keeping himself out of jail is $5,000, which is the target of his FundRazr campaign, aptly named 'Keep RossCreations out of Jail'. As of this writing, the campaign has raised $1,400.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, this is not the first time this Bam Margera-wannabe has been arrested over internet video shenanigans. According to The Daily Dot, he was arrested for jumping over a police officer who was sitting on a park bench in March 2013. Several months before that, Ross was arrested for giving strangers wedgies. I am not making this up.
There's a part of me that suspects the whole arrest-and-felony aspect of this is an elaborate ruse to make a quick buck, that the two cops in the video are hired actors—oh, I don't know, a prank, if you will. If it is, it'll undoubtedly go down as the smartest prank Ross has ever attempted.
