SAN ANTONIO — Five foreign nationals with French visas broke into a courthouse early Wed nesday, authorities said, setting off a heavy police response with bomb-sniffing dogs and FBI agents. Hours later, officials said the young men turned out to be bar hoppers looking for kicks.
Surveillance photos show two men donning sombreros while running down a hallway about 1:30 a.m. A beer bottle was left in one courtroom, Bexar County Sheriff Amadeo Ortiz said, and the suspects playfully swung around a judge’s gavel before getting caught.
“Evidently, they had been drinking prior to coming up here,” Ortiz said. “It’s very likely these individuals were just intoxicated.”
All the men are in their 20s and are expected to be charged with burglary. Although their visas listed French addresses, authorities said they were not sure of their original nationalities. Ortiz said the men appeared to pose no security threat.
The levity with which police described the drunken caper at an afternoon news conference differed sharply from the intensity and suspicion that surrounded the courthouse earlier in the day, when fears of terrorism were foremost.
The Associated Press
