Breathe easy, Spokane. The crime rate's sure to dip now that Lewis and Clark High School's "Hamburger Five" have been grilled into submission by a Police Department riot squad.

The big burger bust went down shortly after 2:30 p.m. Tuesday on a train trestle near the LC parking lot.

When it was over, five of the school's top graduating seniors -- including valedictorian Silas Hilliard, who scored a perfect 1,600 on his SATs -- were handcuffed and hauled off to the Spokane County Jail.

They could have posted a $500 bond and gone home. Instead they decided to spend a night in the slammer as an act of defiance over the silliness of their alleged crimes.

Crimes?

The five were charged with trespassing onto the trestle and disorderly conduct for the slingshot launching of 10 Dick's cheeseburgers at fellow students below.

Apparently there was a shortage of meth labs to raid Tuesday afternoon.

Departing seniors "always hurl water balloons" on their last day, Hilliard explained after his release from jail Wednesday afternoon. "This was a step of creativity."

Hilliard, 18, is the Mayor McCheese mastermind of this brainy bunch.

It was his slingshot, after all. Plus he was the one who figured out that a burger's aerodynamic capabilities will increase dramatically if you first tie rubber bands around it.

You don't get accepted to Cal Tech for nothing.

Hilliard's 18-year-old co-conspirators are Erin Weller, who plays one of the Tiger mascots at school sporting events; Justin Gil, a hospice volunteer; and Blake Doepker, who is headed for the University of Washington on an engineering scholarship.

Those renegades were processed as adults. Being 17, Marc Opsal went into the lockup for juveniles, where he spent an interesting night.

"My cellmate had been in the news for a few felonies," Opsal said. "He was a pretty nice guy."

About 30 LC seniors spent much of Wednesday waiting patiently outside the jail for the Hamburger Five's exit.

The mood was like a pep rally. Many students wore school colors, orange and black.

Earlier in the day, the four adult burger hurlers appeared in District Court before Commissioner Rob Seines. He ordered their release, telling them prosecutors had declined to prosecute.

That may sound like good news, but there's a catch.

"This does not mean they are out of the woods, so to speak," city Prosecutor Sam Faggiano said. He added that he plans to consult with police and perhaps school officials before deciding whether to file charges.

His first chat should be with Mike Howson, LC's principal.

Howson believes the police were just doing their job. He also views the incident as a relatively harmless prank that doesn't warrant any disciplinary action from the school.

"How could we? It wouldn't make sense," Howson said. "They're just super kids."

Howson's attitude is refreshing. LC's graduation is Friday. If you punish these kids any more you might as well change "Pomp and Circumstance" to "Jailhouse Rock."

The big moment at the jail came almost exactly 24 hours after Dick's fell from the sky. Hilliard and the others walked out to the cheers of their classmates.

"Going to jail for chucking hamburgers," one student said. "That's so rock 'n' roll."

The Hamburger Five are good humored about their joyride through justice. Their parents, however, view what happened as a gross overreaction by police.

"What these kids did was a dumb prank, but that's all it was," says Justin's mother, Kathleen Conwell-Gil. "I'm appalled that the police went to anything beyond a citation or a `You kids move on!' "

Police Lt. Scott Mullennix said the riot team was called to the railroad tracks to arrest the students because they were blocking a train.

The Hamburger Five's surgical-tube burger launcher was seized as evidence.

The police, about two dozen of them, did have their hands full with LC on Tuesday.

There was an 11 a.m. incident involving about 150 students milling around and throwing water balloons between the high school and Third Avenue.

Police arrested a 16-year-old who was trying to incite the crowd. Officers also confiscated a trailer full of water balloons and eggs.

It was Vietnam all over again.

The Hamburger Five came on the scene later in the day, unaware of all the earlier ruckus. Before they knew it, they were being frisked (presumably for hidden tartar sauce) and put in the back of a police van.

Of course, in this case that would be a "patty" wagon.

On their way to the hoosegow, Opsal said they actually held hands and warbled "Amazing Grace" to get into the spirit of incarceration.

"I tried to get them to sing Old Man River," Opsal said, "but nobody knew the words."

So what lesson does the Hamburger Five take away from all this?

"Next time we graduate," Gil vowed, "we're not going to throw hamburgers."

"Yeah," Doepker quipped, "we're gonna throw hot dogs."