Posted on 08/11/2004 7:22:50 AM PDT by Hemingway's Ghost
A pair of baby-faced Whitman boys, busted on a public street for illegal skateboarding, were arrested, booked and shackled before being hauled into a Brockton juvenile court to face charges, the children's irate parents said yesterday.
``It's absurd,'' mother Stephanie Saltzman said. ``My son is 12 years old and all he was doing is skateboarding. I mean, you gotta be kidding me.''
Saltzman's son, Josh, and 14-year-old neighbor, Ryan Maxwell, were arrested Aug. 3 when a Whitman police officer caught them skateboading on South Avenue. A town bylaw prohibits using skateboards or other devices to ``coast or slide'' along public streets.
Town officials would not comment on the specifics of the case yesterday, but they said police would not arrest kids unless their illegal actions were more severe than simply skateboarding.
``They would have to be doing something that causes it to rise to that level,'' Town Administrator Frank Lynam said. ``It's at the discretion of the officer to determine whether an arrest should be made.''
Dean Leavitt, the officer who collared the rosy-cheeked boys, declined to comment yesterday.
The boys insisted they were merely skateboarding in front of their homes when an officer took their boards and ordered them into the back of his car. They said they complied without any protest.
``I couldn't believe it was happening over skateboarding,'' Josh Saltzman said. ``We have too many cops that have nothing to do in this town.''
The boys said they were booked at the police station and then driven to Brockton Juvenile Court, where they were locked in a cell for two hours before being led into a courtroom with shackles around their wrists and ankles.
Michael Maxwell, Ryan's father, said he raced to court to pick up his son after he was told the boy would be held overnight if he did not arrive before 3:30 p.m.
``I was sitting in court when they called out his name and I could see his hands and hear the jingling as he walked,'' Maxwell said. ``To arrest a child for riding on a board? I don't know what that serves.''
The boys were ordered to perform 15 hours of community service before Nov. 1.
Town officials said they have had numerous incidents involving skateboarders jumping off library steps, weaving through traffic and creating other disturbances. They say they are trying to find a suitable location for a skateboard park.
Interesting coincidence...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1189406/posts#11
*hippie voice
Skateboarding is NOT a crime, man!!!!
/hippie voice
Thrown in the clink for skateboarding in front of one's home . . . is this what happens when peace officers become LEOs instead?
Rodney King!....Rodney King!.....Rodney King!.....
A TTI CA!....... A TTI CA!.......A TTI CA!
Pretty soon, walking on the sidewalk while listening to an IPOD will be deemed dangerous and illegal.
The county should make a skate park to keep them off the streets.
I got tired of the local yoots skateboarding in our grocery store parking lot. A few handfuls of coarse gravel took care of the issue. You scatter it around and it makes skateboarding impossible. But hey, I guess if I was a $60,000 per year civil servant cop with a retirement package, I'd pretend it was a complex problem too.
Look at skateboards as bicycles and it wouldn't be long before some of these overly energetic teens actually injure and/or maim a pedestrian or animal. Kids need to find skate parks in their neighborhoods. We used to have this problem in Indianapolis where these hordes of kids would pick an office plaza and "fly through the air," bump into pedestrians and run delivery personnel off the sidewalk...that is until the police banned the practice.
So, do you think cops that think this is good policing should keep their jobs, or not?
Uhm............What's wrong with their own driveways?
We homeschooled, as did my sister who lived a couple doors down.
One day, mid-morning, everybody seemed antzy, so we called a phys ed break and sent the three boys out to run around the one mile lap in front of our house (we live on a golf course and there are two fairways and greens directly in front of our houses, circled by a road, and the distance around them is a one mile lap).
Anyway, we can see them as they run all the way around, but they were probably 10, 12, and 13, so we weren't paying lots of attention.
Next thing I know there's a police car in my driveway with the three boys in the backseat.
The cop that stopped them wasn't our regular community police officer (who knows the boys and knows they're homeschooled).
He thought the boys weren't telling the truth about being homeschooled and were truant.
Needless to say, it was a big deal to ride in the back of the police car, even though they were a little shaken up by the whole incident.
its a sideWALK you are suppose to WALK on it. though if they are not really bothering anyone i don't see the big deal. the cops probably had trouble with skateboards before.
the kid was on the radio in boston today and he called the cops "jerk faces" hahaha , those wacky kids.
Asheville had a huge problem with kids skating downtown so the city donated land, helped arrange sponsors and built a nice park for the kids on the edge of downtown. It cured the problem with the downtown skaters. Now, if they would install public showers, that would take care of another problem.
They would much rather be at the parks if they existed. Kids can ride skateboards in public places and show the proper respect for others. I mostly see small minded adults not showing the proper respect for these kids, though.
I wonder if they weren't engaged in some destruction of property. . . Most cities that have outlawed skateboarding did so because the kids jump and slide their skateboards down curbs and railings, scratching them up. I've seen kids do this with bikes too, by putting a metal rod on the back wheel that extends a few inches from the axle on either side. They jump the bike, catch it and balance on that rod, and slide down a railing.
First, most cops don't really care about skateboarders. But then you have business owners calling in and complaining that the skateboarders are becoming a problem. Then Joe Citizen calls in complaining that skateboarders are dangerous because they dart in and out of traffic, knocking little old ladies over.
Next thing ya know they're all calling the mayor and the safety director. Citizens are in an uproar. The cops arent doing a thing about the evil plague of skateboarders.
So the safety director sends a memo to the police chief. The "Kerry" rolls down hill to the patrolmen who don't really have time to fart around with skateboarders but now they're getting "Kerry'd" from above.
So the patrolmen go to the skateboarders and tell them to find another place to skate.
Usually the skateboarders don't listen and they're back the next day. The shopkeepers and citizens keep calling fired up because 'all the cops did was tell them to leave, and they didn't.'
So this leaves the cops with no other choice than to grab a few and haul them downtown. Next thing the poor cop knows is he's the target of sport on websites and newspapers for being a cretin. Lawsuits to follow by irate skateboard parents.
It's a no win situation.
I doubt that they were arrested for skateboarding since the officer isn't likely to be given that much discretion. More likely they were arrested for breaking a law, probably a law against skateboarding. Don't cry to the officer or the court that are just doing their job. Cry instead to your legislator and the guy YOU elected.
Sounds to me like these kids were just doing what most kids typically do---play. Do you think what they were doing warranted the cop to slap cuffs on them and haul them off to jail---shackled---like they had just committed murder or something? Honestly? Where's this cop's sense of proportion?
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