The requirement was for immediate eviction. I had seen the kid do it and went up to the unit to investigate. It was occupied by a preacher and his wife from Atlanta and a group of 6 8-9 y.o. boys who were a guidance project for the church, boys form the ghetto who had showed academic promise and needed guidance to keep them in school and out of jail. Had they been evicted the rocketeer would have been kicked out of the program. The police were called to do the eviction and the officer who showed up was one I knew and I asked him if he could impress the kid . I knew him to be a pretty good actor and he put on a good performance impressing the boy that his action was not civilized and jeopardized his future. He rode him to the substation with preacher accompanied. Paper work was done and the boy had to sign things. He was released with solemnity to the custody of the preacher and returned to the resort. The manager at the resort determined that an eviction did not have to be done and the group completed their vacation which was a reward for a year of good behaviour and good grades. A year later the preacher was back with his family and I met him again. He said the boy had not got into any further trouble. That paperwork at the station was show-only and went into the trash.
PS. The officer a couple of months later got shot to death in a traffic stop right in front of the same condo by a punk on the run from Indiana.
Heck, in my day, that was a more commonplace thing, often done with a parent’s consent for a kid who was in danger of going down the wrong path.
And I don’t disagree with it. I had one occasion where a police officer in a cruiser was suspicious that I might have been monkeying around doing things I shouldn’t (probably at age 8 or 9 I think) and after questioning me, he offered to give me a ride home. (I was a couple of miles from home)
When I declined, he insisted, and I got a ride home, no big deal, he let me out of the car with a big smile, and I got out wondering if my parents had seen me, which they didn’t. But it wasn’t a big deal, and I rationalized that he was just being nice giving me a ride home.
I look at this all these years later...and I don’t remember, but I probably WAS doing something stupid, throwing rocks at an abandoned wreck of a house or something, and this was likely the cop’s friendly way of trying to ensure my parents knew that I had attracted the attention of the police, even in an ostensibly friendly way.
But I never told my parents, but I did hear them say one time to one of my siblings that if they came home in the back of a squad car, there was going to be Hell to pay!
Heh, one time when I was in second grade at Green Acres Elementary School (near where George Mason University is now...this was when it was under construction) I got a really bad report card, and tried to forge my father’s signature on it. I was using one of those fat pencils you use to write on that rough yellow paper that had alternating rows of thicker dark lines with a dotted red line between them to help you form your cursive handwriting, so...you can imagine that my effort was pretty pathetic and an adult would see through it immediately.
When she saw it, the teacher made me stand in front of the class, and told the entire class that I had tried to forge my parent’s signature. She said “This is called Forgery. It is a criminal act. People go to JAIL for doing this!” (as I stood arms dangling by my side head down in shame)
Times were different back then, that is for sure.
I still haven’t gone to the web site to find out the story with this. I wouldn’t countenance that if the kid just balled his fists, but...if he said something like “I’m going to get a gun and kill you” well, it seems like no kid nowadays would be too young to say that.
Sadly.