Police 'All Come Running' Over Tasteless Prank

New Yorkers went from horror to disbelief Tuesday when an apparent dead baby turned out to be a discarded doll, NBC New York reports. Emergency responders declared the "child" dead before 8am in a Queens park, triggering the arrival of at least 100 cops who pitched a crime-scene tent and scoured the scene. A woman whose children go to school nearby could hardly speak: "That's terrible," she said as she covered her mouth and choked up. "That's terrible. I'm sorry—I can't—it's a baby. I can't." Collective horror mounted until a team from the Medical Examiner's office showed up and noticed that the baby wore a "Crawling Dead" T-shirt, per the New York Times. They also noticed the baby was synthetic.

That triggered a fresh round of relief and outrage as people asked how the mistake stood for about three hours. There's also the question of who dared waste police time. "Any time a child is involved in any kind of crime, the police department goes crazy, so they all come running," says the head of a local community council. "Once it becomes a major crime scene, you have so many departments and everyone gets blocked off." As police investigate, a sergeant says they should have video-taped onlookers at the park—"because, in my opinion, that person or persons is in the crowd watching this, enjoying the excitement of it all," he tells CBS New York.