It's midnight; do you know where your kids are?

I handled a call last night that still has me shaking my head. I was dispatched to a report of objects being thrown from an overpass on I-57 just south of town. I arrived about 6-7 minutes later, and lo and behold, here are two subjects leaning over the rail watching the northbound traffic. I hit my lights and my spotlight, and they froze--- two kids.

Got out on my patrol car after calling in the make, model, color and license plate on their car, and told both of them to get on their knees, hands behind their heads, ankles crossed, etc. (assume the position, to those of you who've been there). Frisked one, cuffed him, put him in my car, frisked and cuffed the other and asked him to explain what they were doing on this overpass at midnight. I also told him that there was a repoort of objects being thrown off of the overpass. He immediately copped a major case of attitude, so I told him to get up and kneel, ankles crossed, in front of my car, where I could see him.

I opened the back door to my squad car and asked the other kid the same questions and imparted the same info to him about the report we had. The kid hemmed and hawed for a minute, and them said that they had been throwing walnuts 'and a few other things' off the overpass, trying to hit cars. I asked what 'other things', and was told 'a toilet'. Closed the door to the car, got the other kid and put him next to his pal in the back seat.

I went down the side of the overpass and shone my Mag onto the roadbed, and sure enough, there was the shatterd bowl and tank of an ordinary commode. As I'm standing there, a semi- pulls of on the ROW and another one pulls in behind him. The first semi has a massive dent in it's hood, and the one behind it has a broken passenger-side windshield.

Cut to the chase... These two kids, both 17, we're 'bored' last night and decided to spice their boring existences up by tossing stuff off the oevrpass at oncoming cars and trucks. When they discovered that the walnuts only bounced off, they went in search of something more, ummm, 'substantial' to throw, and found the commode. They disassembled it and tossed the tank off at semi #1, causing the dent, then tossed the bowl off, causing the right-hand windshiled of semi #2 to shatter.

I arrested both and charged them with criminal mischief, felony reckless endangerment, and attempted aggravated battery; both are being held in the county jail pending a court appearance this afternoon...

:wtf:

That is scary. What were they thinking?? :shrug:

:shrug:

Sheesh.

It's a good thing I have a very high boiling point. He didn't JUST cop a 'tude, but his mouth was a running sewer...

I'm so happy I have parents that give a crap about me.

If I wasn't home by 10:00 on a school night, not only would my Dad have come looking for me, but there would have been holy HELL to pay when he found me....

take care. I always tell the kids and teens that I work with that they are lucky to have parents who pester them and set limits for them. They don't agree, but it will probably make sense to them later on.

We've got to focus on the kids, because that's the only time 'intervention' has a decent chance of having a lasting impact; if you wait to intervene when they're 25 or older, you're poubnding sand in a rat hole, in most cases.

I hope Judge Flannel puts the fear of God in them, although it won't upset me if the charges wind up being reduced, since they have no priors...

I start to worry about them when they are 12-14 and doing those things. Although at the same time I wonder if we are too hard on the true "pranksters" who are just teens playing around with spray paint, etc. At times I think we have taken the puritan pillory too far in our country, almost as if we don't know when to draw the line and want to punish everyone for any infraction, no matter how small. JMO

A little spray paint, or having a beer or two, etc., don't constitute 'major crime', IMO, and I frankly just handle a lot of those sorts of things informally. OTOH, cases like this one are a big time klaxon horn warning us all that something has gone SERIOUSLY wrong, and need immediate and VERY focused attention.

I worked in a retail store that closed at 9, and if I wasn't going to be home by 10 (usually more than enough time to close out the register, straighten up, check out and drive home), I better damn well have called. And it better have been from the store phone, with the store manager close enough to verify. (Or, failing that, from the $3-per-minute car phone we had for emergencies, explaining that the police officer was taking an accident report for something that better not have been my fault, or that the tow-truck driver was coming soon, again for something that better not have been my fault.)

I've heard of chucking things like pennies, water balloons and ketchup off of overpasses -- but toilets?

That was a 'first' for me, too... :shrug: