Erin Taylor was taking a stroll in the sand along the water at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando when a young man rushed up to her with terrifying news: The resort was in a state of emergency, he said. She needed to evacuate immediately. There was an active shooter on the property.

Taylor worked as a manager at the resort but somehow did not know anything about this.

She started to panic. And that’s when the young man said he was just joking. He had been going around scaring people just to record their reactions as an experiment for a YouTube video, he said, according to court records.

The police would not find his prank very funny.

Dillion Burch, 22, was arrested by Orange County sheriff’s deputies in the early-morning hours Monday after creating a brief panic at the resort.

According to the arrest affidavit, Burch started telling people standing at the resort bus stop that there was an active shooter inside the hotel. Sometime afterward, he alarmed Taylor on the beach and approached two others.

Confronted by a hotel manager, Jose Castillo, Burch claimed the YouTube video was for a school project, the affidavit said.

Castillo told him that he was not allowed to do that and that the police were on their way to speak with him.

He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three days in jail.

WASHINGTON POST