('The Bad Seed' cult classic in case you don't know.)
Posted on 07/06/2006 10:41:40 AM PDT by devane617
NEW PORT RICHEY - Last week, her son turned 10 years old. On Tuesday morning, she watched as police took him away in a patrol car, charged with a felony.
A neighbor saw the boy break into her car and make off with a pocket knife, according to a police report.
Police were originally uneasy about arresting the boy, who will be a fourth-grader this year. But New Port Richey Lt. Jeffrey Harrington said the mother insisted. They charged him with armed burglary.
"The mother was at her wits' end," Harrington said Wednesday. "She thought he was just incorrigible. She asked us for help to get him into the system."
The single mother told the St. Petersburg Times that her son was so out of control that someone had to do something. (The Times is withholding her identity to avoid identifying the boy.)
"This kid has me in such fear for my own safety and my other son's (an 11-year-old) safety," she said. "I'm not giving up on him. I just think this is what he needs."
She said her son began beating her at age 6 with a Nerf baseball bat that had a metal rod inside. She said he knows that she has a bad leg from a car accident, and he aims directly for it. Sometimes, she said, he threatens to kill her or slit her throat during the night, and she is so afraid that she has a friend stay over so that she can get some sleep.
The mother listed several incidents involving her son since she moved to a new home June 1. The police had been to her home at least eight or nine times before the arrest.
Her son had punched walls in her last home, which angered the landlord so much that they had to move. She said he stole a bike from a little girl at the library and has also stolen jewelry, money and other items.
Recently, a police officer brought him home after he was found spray-painting the playground on Main Street, she said. But because of his age, nobody would press charges.
"Everyone's felt so bad because he's so young that nobody wants to press charges, but that doesn't help him," the mother said. "Apparently, he's trying to act like an adult, so he needs to be treated that way and learn he can't do these things."
When she saw her son in court Wednesday morning, she said, he was arrogant and refused to look at the judge, giggling throughout the proceedings.
"At one point, the judge had to yell at him to look up," she said. "And he said he didn't care if he was kept there for 21 days."
So that's exactly what the judge ordered. The 10-year-old will remain in the juvenile detention center near Land O'Lakes for just shy of a month. His mother said she hopes it will make a difference.
"I pray to God it will," she said "No matter how bad it gets, you just have to be a parent and give unconditional love."
I was going to ask 'was his name Cartman?' But you beat me to it!! ;-)
Where was the "Village" support?
/s
I shudder to think what the kid will learn and who he'll meet in a juvenile detention center.
It would've been better to send the kid to work on a plantation in Cuba.
haha...duly noted...
you will respect my authoritah!
I haven't read the posts following this, but the ones that came before already branded this viewpoint insensitive or worse. It's perfectly all right--even on a "conservative" forum--to blame children's problems on mental illness, but it's absolutely forbidden to hint that poor parenting (or no parenting at all) might really be to blame.
If he's really sociopathic, that won't help.
('The Bad Seed' cult classic in case you don't know.)
I think she did a smart thing. She literally couldn't keep him from doing serious harm to others, or from stealing and vandalizing all over the neighborhood, without doing things that would get her arrested and result in BOTH her kids ending up in foster care. Used to be that parents could keep kids like this locked up 24/7 if need be, and give them good sound whuppings too. Can't do that anymore.
A few years back there was a family (two parents) in New Jersey who had begged the juvenile justice system and mental health system to take their son and lock him up, because they just couldn't handle him. He was about 12 IIRC, and his behavior had gone sour after he'd been molested by an adult man. But the authorities refused to take the kid. Of course AFTER he murdered a much younger boy, THEN the authorities took him.
This mother wants to avoid that. Good for her. This kid may be hopelessly mentally ill, but if there's any hope for him, he urgently needs to learn that he cannot be part of a family or free community if he behaves the way he has been.
But apparently the other kid, just one year older, is doing okay.
WTF???
This won't be the last we see of him in some form of government detention.
Spare the rod, spoil the child.
And she's right to protect herself since she has another son depending on her. She has to show sequence of events and that she's made every attempt to do the right thing. I just worry about the boy being placed in foster care or going home after his month is up. Either way, I'd be surprised if he suddenly stops acting out.
My thoughts exactly. This isn't the first time the kid has participated in a crime either. No one would press charges then.
Everyone here making comments about her being a single parent and using your little /sarcasm tag need to chill out. We don't know, maybe her husband was abusive, and she had to leave him. Maybe he was abusive to the kids. Maybe he was a perfect husband and father, who happened to be killed by a drunk driver while out shopping for Christmas presents for his family.
I wish all these judgemental people would share with the rest of us the extra information they have which enables them to pass judgement on this woman the way they are doing.
Bears repeating.
You haven't been around FR very long, have you? Threads like these draw the usual suspects, all ready to draw conclusions without having relevant info.
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