Local NewsNational

Actions

University of Southern California sues YouTubers over pranks

University of Southern California, in Los Angeles
Posted

The University of Southern California is suing two YouTube performers who the school says created panic after barging into classrooms to film prank videos for their channels.

Court documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times claim the pair caused "terror and disruption" during three "classroom takeover incidents" in the university's Mark Taper Hall of Humanities. The YouTubers are not USC students.

A court filing says they interrupted a lecture on the Holocaust last month while pretending to be a "Russian Mafia" member and Hugo Boss, a known World War II Nazi uniform manufacturer. A judge on Friday issued a temporary restraining order banning the pair from USC's downtown Los Angeles campus.

According to the Associated Press, students reportedly ran from the classrooms, with some tripping over seats and leaving behind laptops and backpacks trying to flee “what reasonably appeared to them as a credible threat of imminent classroom violence,” court documents said.