Posted on 12/17/2009 10:13:49 AM PST by streetpreacher
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WTVC-TV) - A 4-year-old boy, beer in hand, is accused of stealing Christmas presents from his neighbors. It's a strange story, but also a sad one.
April Wright is 21 years old and is going through a divorce with her husband who is in jail. She says she is not sure how her 4-year-old managed to get out of the house, open a beer, and steal the neighbors presents from under their tree. Now she's just glad he's okay and says she won't let it happen again.
The child, Hayden Wright, was found around 1:45 am Tuesday, wandering the streets of his neighborhood. In a police reports, officers said he was wearing a little girl's dress and drinking a beer. The police report says the child had to taken to the hospital to be treated for alcohol consumption.
April Wright said, "Biggest concern was him being out there, getting kidnapped, getting run over, the alcohol, having to have his stomach pumped."
Wright says she woke up that night at 1:45 am and panicked when she found Hayden was gone. She says she put safety devices on all the doors so her kids couldn't get out, but Hayden was able to break the safety device off the doorknob and get outside.
Once out, Wright says her four year old followed his father's footsteps and was found on Blue Spruce Road, drinking.
"He runs away trying to find his father," she said. "He wants to get in trouble so he can go to jail because that's where his daddy is."
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office report says Hayden rang the doorbell a few houses down and the neighbor answered, finding the child holding a partially consumeed 12-ounce beer.
Wright said, "He got it out of my father's cooler in the back and how he got it open I don't understand because it was one of those tab beers."
But it doesn't stop there. The report said Hayden then snuck into a neighbor's house through an unlocked front door, and stole five wrapped Christmas gifts. One was a girl's brown dress which Hayden was wearing when police found him.
"Going to the neighbor's house and taking their presents, very embarrassing," said April.
She admits she was not just embarrassed, but scared, and rushed to the hospital that night with Hayden. She said she tries to be a good mother and loves her son, but now feels like a failure.
"Kids do things like this and it's out of your control, you can do the best you can as a mother, everyone makes mistakes, it was an honest mistake," she said.
Wright did meet with child protective services today who told her she will get to keep custody of Hayden.
This is heart-breaking.
She has a very good reason to feel like a failure, IMO.
“It’s fun to do bad things.”
Hold muh sippy cup
I really feel badly about the boy. He is obviously very upset at not having his daddy around, even if daddy is not the best role model.
>>April Wright is 21 years old and is going through a divorce with her husband who is in jail. She says she is not sure how her 4-year-old managed to get out of the house, open a beer, and steal the neighbors presents from under their tree.<<
Well, I’m not too sure either, but I’d hazard a guess that having a baby at 17 + jailbird baby-daddy + divorce = familial malfunction.
Yeah, but it’s kind of hard to believe a four-year-old would go through the thought process of wanting to get in trouble with the police by drinking beer and stealing presents so he could be with his Daddy in jail. I can’t imagine a four-year-old thinking at that level but who knows what this kid has seen.
Whoever added the Obama tags... LOL...
So sad.
Should have mentioned... linked from Drudge Report.
I have a four year old and can see it. They are amazingly intelligent little people. They don’t understand everything but they can get into about everything and try to mimic those influences around them.
Er, you beat me to it...Sadly, I suppose the acorn in this case won't fall that far from the tree either.
So, she was 17 when she gave birth, and was likely 16 when she got pregnant. Sad.
Assuming she is trying to turn her life around (divorcing her loser husband is a start); it appears she did other things right. She has locks on the cabinets and the child broke a device to get out the door. Unfortunately, she made a very poor choice on who she picked to become a father to her child.
Well, if he was told that his daddy went to jail for stealing and drinking, he might just figure that the way to be with daddy was to do what daddy did.
Baaaaaaaaaaad move, IMO. Why don't we just schedule an appointment on the juvy docket for 10-12 years from now?
Yeah, I remember my uncle letting me taste his in order to dissuade me because I kept wanting a drink. Nastiest thing a five-year-old ever tasted.
Makes you wonder if this is the kid’s first. He obviously drank it because the mom said his stomach was pumped, unless that was just a precaution and over-reaction by medical and CPS.
???
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