Posted on 12/18/2011 5:42:36 PM PST by naturalman1975
Two teenagers who spotted a five-year-old girl sleeping in a stolen car have told how they were arrested for 'doing the right thing' when they called police.
Tyler Thompson and Connor Roderick were held in custody for four hours and had their DNA and fingerprints taken.
Their clothes were also kept by police following the incident in St Helen Auckland, near Bishop Auckland, County Durham.
Now Tyler,16, and 18-year-old Connor plan to submit a complaint to the authorities about their treatment.
The teenagers were on their way to a shop to buy milk at about 10.15pm nine days ago when they found the abandoned red Skoda Fabia with its engine running.
It had been stolen from outside the Royal Chef Chinese takeaway in nearby Manor Road.
The driver had left his keys in the ignition while he went in to place an order and three youths were spotted driving the car away shortly after 10pm.
The friends recognised the car and while Connor ran to find the owner, Tyler spotted the young girl on the back seat and guarded the vehicle.
Connor then brought the police and the girl's father to the car where officers arrested them.
'We couldn't believe what was happening,' said Tyler. 'We hadn't done anything wrong. We thought we were doing the right thing but the police just didn't believe us. We were gutted.
'If we had left that car, I never would have been able to forgive myself if something had happened to that girl.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
No good deed goes unpunished
I can appreciate the cops questioning them to ensure they weren’t child molesters or kidnappers or something, but to arrest them is only going to cause many people to walk away from such situations and some kids will die as a result.
I hope they don’t get life.
Way to go - a twofer; teach the citizenry never to encroach on the sacred ground of the police and turn two teenagers into cop haters.
My late Father’s old pickup truck was stolen out of his yard. The house was not occupied but it was kept up and any time some of our family visited, they would stay there.
I reported it stolen and a deputy came by. He kept acting a bit weird and asked me for my drivers license among other odd requests.
I almost just asked him what the hell was going on but didn’t say anything. Nothing more happened and it was never found but it did irritate the heck out of me.
Yes, I can’t see why the police needed to do more than take their names so if they needed to follow things up later, they could.
Alternate scenario, but not quite as strange.
Perps: “Well officer, we stole this car and abducted this little girl, so we called you up to show you where the car and the girl are.”
Cops: “Ok, just don’t do that any more, please. Now go away.”
The cop was an idiot.
Cops winning new supporters /s
Where I come from if you are "gutted" you can't talk about it.
They are way to non-minority looking to think they can get away without getting arrested.
That is probably the best explanation.
It was clear he suspected me of something but no scenario I could think of would have had me do something illegal then report Daddy’s pickup stolen.
From this article, it sounds reasonable. Three kids stole the car, and two kids help return it (and the girl, of course!). I can see the cops thinking they were part of the original three—maybe the two with consciences.
That’s always a possible scenario. One of the first things they teach at cop school is that anybody is capable of anything.
However, it wouldn’t have been necessary to arrest them, at this point. If the police had gotten the young men’s vitals at that point, the police could have let them go and picked them up later if it was warranted.
We had an incident in N.C. when a hunter found a body. They police detained him, told his wife he was having an affair,and told his employer he was a person of interest in a murder investigation. Never talk to the police.
Ungland...
Right before I got to the property, I saw a cop shooting radar, pulled up next to him and told him the story. I said that I would appreciate him going with me, so I could leave my pistol in the console, since he was wearing body armor, and I had a hangover.
He got there before I did.
We inspected and a few calls later, we figured out it was the former renter getting property out of the parking lot.
He never asked me ID (I did have keys) or said much of anything, but he let me go first into every room in the office area. ;)
I was glad he was there.
/johnny
Many thanks to the UK police state /s
The police collected their fingerprints and DNA. The Brits have been on a tear for a universal database and maybe they used this as a pretext for mandatory collection.
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