From the You-just-can’t-make-this-crap-up department:
Penalty for unwrapping gifts early: Arrest
A mother convinced Rock Hill police to arrest her 12-year-old son after he unwrapped a Christmas present early.
The boy’s great-grandmother had specifically told him not to open his Nintendo Game Boy Advance, which she had wrapped and placed beneath the Christmas tree, according to a police report.
But on Sunday morning, she found the box of the popular handheld game console unwrapped and opened. When the boy’s 27-year-old mother heard about the opened gift, she called police.
“He took it without permission. He wanted it. He just took it,” said the 63-year-old great-grandmother.
Waldrop said he was not aware if Rock Hill police have ever arrested a child for unwrapping Christmas presents early.
“Yeah, it’s strange,” he said of the case.
Ya think?
For the love of all powerful invisible sky gods get your tubes tied now.
27 with a 12 yr old.
Grandmother agrees with the action taken.
Obvious teen pregnancy, no father figure.
And now… The rest of the story…
Both the great-grandmother and the mother asked the boy on Sunday where the present was. The boy replied he didn’t know.
“He has shoplifted from stores and stolen money from her, she said. The boy has also been inching toward expulsion from school, she added, and even punched a police officer last month. He was arrested for disorderly conduct in that incident.
She hoped the arrest would be a wake-up call for him. She dreads getting a phone call someday reporting he’s been killed. “I’m trying to get him some kind of help,” she said. “He’s the type of kid who doesn’t believe anything until it happens.”
…Lt. Jerry Waldrop, who added the boy was never held at the jail.
“We wouldn’t hold a 12-year-old,” he said.
RBG
aka The Grinch Who Stole A Good Story.
wow. How can you expect the kid not to open it?! hes 12, its a gameboy, Its sitting wrapped under the tree before xmas eve. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT!!!!!!!!!!!! im 24 and still have trouble holding back from peeking under the giftwrap. One time when I was real young I found all the familys gifts in my parents closet and opened ALL OF THEM not just mine but everybodys.
PS- A tip for all parents. Do not keep the childs gifts in the same house he lives in. Becase they will be found. Try cars trunk or a relatives house (who has no children)
Never, never, never use the cops to try and teach your kid a lesson. The kid gets a record, and in most states in family cases claimants can’t withdraw charges (to keep battered wives from being forced to by their husbands and such).
If the kid is running on the edge of the abyss, you’re supposed to reach out to them, not push them in. Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who don’t know how to be parents. Discipline is more than just hurting someone.
6. Agreed. But not everyone is Dr. Phil.
RBG
#6, Very good points. I want to add that this is most likely a single parent with a rambunctious child. Her parenting skills are probably poor. The family needs some help from outside agencies. The neo-con edict of personal responsibility doesn’t work when the people involved don’t have the skills or resources to correct their behavior.
Having said that, what agencies are there that will help? With a child bordering on a criminal life, the only apparent agency is the police. Especially when the police have already been in the picture.
RBG, thank you for the extra info. It filled in a few blanks.
I wish the whole family the best and hope they get the help they need.
1. Hang it up on the wall and say “NO TOUCH”, maybe if you are GOOD.
2. Hang it on the wall, with a NAIL threw it..
3. take him out and let him watch you give it to another kid.
You have to gain respect, but you have to Explin to the kid, HOW to gain it.
If you dont communicate with the kid, you will NEVER know how/what he thinks, OR how/what you can do to disapline him.
this is as bad as Beating/teaching a stupid dog, and the Dog, dont know WHY.. It dont know HOW to make things better.
Well, just look at the kid: a twelve year old with a beard?!? Of course you can’t trust him.
27 with a 12 yr old.
Grandmother agrees with the action taken.
Obvious teen pregnancy, no father figure.
GREAT-Grandmother. To be precise, a 63 YEAR OLD GREAT Grandmother.
Why is the kid playing a gameboy? He should be thinking about starting a family!
What kind of loser buys a kid a GBA? The DSLite is where its at.
But seriously, what the hell is the point of leaving a present under the tree for a month? It sounds like they were just baiting the kid to teach him a lesson. How is any of this good parenting at all?
Guilty!
And to think my Mom would have just told me to go outside and pick a switch.
>
with a little luck, this kid will develop extreme anti-govt & anti-american ideals, move to the middle-east and absorb hate & angst like a sponge – then come back years later and durka durka jihad, bitches!!
>
This kid needs to sue his mother & grandmother PRONTO!!
Am I the only one who wasn’t told what his christmas presents were?
It says there in the article, the grandmother told him not to open his GBA. If you tell him it’s a GBA……damn well better believe it’s getting opened.
My brother Jeremy, who is the brother just above me in the line up, found and opened all his presents a week before Christmas when he was 12 and I was 7. He tried to rewrap them, but you can guess how that looked. On Christmas morning when everyone was opening their presents, Jeremy kept opening gifts from his brothers and our Grandparents and Uncles and Aunts, but there were none from Santa. Finally my Mom brought out a box, all wrapped up nice and said it was from Santa to Jeremy, he opened it and inside was the wrapping paper from the gifts he had peeked at, and pictures of the items he had seen and no more. When he started to whine, my Mom told him, ***peekers never win***…..he never peeked again, in fact, none of us ever did.
#19
Now that’s a really good Xmas story.
#13
EXCUSE ME IF THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO CAN’T AFFORD A PS3.
He’s edgy because the PS3 sucks. The kid would have left that in the wrapper until next Thanksgiving.
#21 & #22
I’m edgy, because I live in a nation with people surviving with a dollar or less and sometimes certain shallow comments just tick a nerve.
24,
So a kid growing up in a depressed community with shitty schools and very little opportunity for advancement and self-improvement and parents who don’t know how to parent is responsible for his delinquency? I would say he has a role, but it is a small one
#25…Smartalix….I think 24 is responding to 23….it’s sort of ***my country is more piss poor than your country…*** kind of thing.
Pedro….aren’t you from Venezuela? Thats a pretty wealthy country with a piss poor system of asset distribution (ooops, there’s that word again).
Angel….your from Honduras…..that is one hell hole of poverty and I can see why you might be a bit offended by hearing people talk about meaningless gifts when food, clothing and medicine is just a dream to so many people where your from.
Mom took our presents away the year we opened then also. Never did that again.
The only problem comes when as in the POST about Rich getting richer, is that the Poor HERE are almost as bad off as some other countries.
For the Richest nation in the world, we REALLY dont treat the poor very well.
If our medical Poor system would FIX a few of the poor, insted of feeding them drugs until they DIE of something…As in..FIX my knees so I can walk better and work, I PROBABLY wouldnt be on SSI..
FIX it dont patch it.
Even state medical services dont do major surgery, unless its life threatening.. they Wont Fix anything unless is Bad, then you get 3rd rate doctors.
I’m sure that kid was really disappointed when he found out it was a GBA.
That kid should sue his granny for getting him OLD gamer technology. Game Boy Advance that’s so 2002. Why didn’t Grandma get him a Nintendo DS? It plays all the old GBA games. Sue grandma for being retarded or a cheapskate.
So, I guess the police are supposed to clean up the mess made by bad parenting? Seems pretty childish. Oh well: At least he wasn’t beaten to death on the way to jail. http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/423466/821545
#29
No worries because I have the same problem, when I try to be funny people get mad at me.
And to those whose mother took away those gifts you peeked before Xmas… I hope you guys (and gals) are part of the writing staff from Malcolm In the Middle 😉
Who is the Idiot here? seems it may be you for putting it on the Mom DUH
This kid is out of control and you call the Mom an Idiot for seeking help? I do Not agree that the kid should be charged but the gam system should go back to the store and let the kid stew over that for a while.
that is just wrong over a christmas present i hope the mother knows how the son will hate her when he gets out and officers should not arrest the kid if it is not against the law .police and mothers make no sense today .and you are gonna listen to an old woman.
So….why exactly did this kid know what he was getting?
“The boy’s great-grandmother had specifically told him not to open his Nintendo Game Boy Advance,”
Why would she tell him what it is, to get him all excited, knowing how rambunctious (sp?) and care-free the kid is, then place it under the tree?
This statement right here is what boggles me.