Girl, 12, takes dad's car on joy ride; charged with grand theft auto at her father's request

PLANTATION - A 12-year-old girl who took her dad's car on a joy ride and initially refused to stop for police has been charged with grand theft auto at her father's request, police said today.

Police quickly spotted the girl Monday because she forgot a basic tenet of night driving: headlights.

The child disappeared with the yellow Nissan about 10:30 p.m. while her father was visiting her ailing 19-month-old sibling at Plantation General Hospital, said police Detective Robert Rettig. The ordeal started and ended in the hospital parking lot at 401 NW 42 Ave., Rettig said.

She drove south on State Road 7 and made a U-turn, but didn't get far, hitting a police car near the hospital, Rettig said.

"Apparently she drove around and a couple officers tried to stop her and she wouldn't stop," Rettig said. "She ended up rolling into a police car."

When she finally did stop, she tried to flee, but once again, didn't get far, Rettig said. Nobody was hurt.

Her father is pressing charges because it is the second time she has driven off in a car, Rettig said.He did not have further details.

The girl was taken to the juvenile assessment center, Rettig said.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-car-theft-juvenile-plantation-bn0519,0,2703130.story

Oy! I wonder what else this kid has done. I also wonder what her home situation is like, and how she acts in school. She managed to do about everything wrong, and it is a wonder nobody was hurt.

nineteen-month-old sibling, a sick one, at that?

Can you say "acting out"? As soon as I saw that the father was pressing charges, a flag went up. This little girl has done more than take the car for a ride a couple of times............

trying to teach her a lesson.

May well be not all that she's done.

She clearly has a lot of serious issues, be it in the hard wiring, or her home environment, but - and I'm asking this in earnest - how is a child that age actually 'charged?'

one catches the kid leaving "running away" and calls them in as run away.

kids world is a mess today. i have watched over decades and concluded things were changing with them. now it is no longer in decade, but yearly as their world decays.....

her ass goes into juvie, or some other harsh punishment. i watched nephews steal car, credit card, bullshit with judge and get no punishment. it helps them not. i am watching kids made into victim for their choice. i have become hardlline here. ass into juvie. it is hers to sink and swim. we have all adamently demanded our children into adult world. empowered them to do as they chose regardless, and with little repercussion. it is OUR fault. and it is our KIDS that suffer. but they dont get to be victim. they are held to their actions. choices they make. i refuse to now sell the kids short with little or no expectation of them. it is doing horrendous damage.

this is a subject, raising 14 and 11 yr old, and all the nephews and nieces problems, not to mention friends ect..... i am coming to some harsh realities.

I wouldn't entrust any child of mine to their tender mercies unless they were a stone cold killer or something.

Most kids come out of "juvie" more screwed up than they went in, they will damn sure learn how to be better criminals in there.

and this fear is what takes the equation out and gives comfort to the child knowing their parent will always be there to bail them out, cause after all, regardless of what they do, that threat hangs over the parents head

And yet we have more screwed up kids than many other developed societies.

I'm by no means convinced that punishment is the best way to get results with children, I've very successfully raised one child and have a big hand in raising my three grandkids and I rarely use punishment, I find rewarding them and praising them when they do the right thing to be far more effective.

Kids crave attention and if you don't give them positive attention they will act in a manner that you have to give them negative attention, it's second best to them but it's better than being ignored.

about this just last night with two sons, as we are talking about their 16 and 14 yr ols cousins breaking laws, running away and their 16 yr old niece calling cps on a father) how i raised them was respectful. i respect them, they learn to respect self and me ergo people in their outside world. we talk about behavior, good and bad, repercussion. suggestions made. expectation expressed. and though it takes longer for behavior results, with patience and consistency, the child learns to think things thru and make the good decision cause he wants to, not cause he is fearful of a belt, or spanking. fear being the decider on behavior.

i agree

and children who dont get this, are not raised with these tools to go thru life havent learned it behooves them and their future to make good choices.

then they become a part of their learned pattern of behavior. they set themselves up for how they are going to live life and the choices they make. those choices wont be thought out, it will be instant gratification, because they have not been taught. and to change that pattern takes...... something.

and hard to raise. wasnt like that in my house, with my kids

...but god knows all sorts of other examples and situations exist and occur.

We've always lived in rural/small city areas, and even though my friends and I, at different stages, found ourselves in trouble while growing up - and knew plenty of others as well - I certainly never saw anyone that young sent away.

I've known of a very minor % of incidents where someone's child was actually imbalanced and were treated accordingly/psychologically, but never saw or knew any sent to "juvie" at age 12 or younger.

way back when.....

things are different today in so many ways. i am getting different perspectives because of different lifestyles in families around me. two brothers with kids and on hubby side two other families, not to mention the kids friends and their families. i am seeing consistencies that dont bode well. now the kids are teenagers and parents saying, what did i do wrong. oh so much, so so much.

It isn't San Quentin with smaller bunks. Of course it varies from state to state but basically the juvenile justice system is an intervention/rehabilitation oriented system. Kids get intensive counselling and age-dependent training/school. My Dad taught school in the local county juvenile facility for 20+ years, my Mom worked in the counselling wing of the same center. In Oregon, there are local centers and state-run centers. The state centers are more like prisons in that they are almost exclusively for serious criminal behavior and for mostly older children. The local juvy centers are essentially short term, and in Oregon, more like group foster homes than prisons. I don't know current statistics, but in the 60s, 70s and 80s the vast majority of kids in the local juvy were in for family problems and had never committed a true crime (running away, truancy). Actually, juvy is where kids go when the parents get arrested until family or foster living arrangements can be found.

and have not researched or know anything about it. only the standard comment, ..... kids are worse coming out than going in. that is the extent. so maybe we need your information, to learn, a bit of reality.

thanks

...and stuff far worse than truancy, but this particular area in the late 70s and 80s must not have been big on sending kids through that system.

And also, by "prison" I wasn't equating the conditions of juvenile facilities to maximum security prisons for adults. I would have thought that should be obvious ...but was making the point that I found it bizarre that a child as young as 6 would be removed/taken out of their home and placed in a state-run system, even for something like stealing cars.

Then again, maybe that only seems strange/extreme to me since I wasn't raised in an area where those incidents were routine - and again, that's coming from someone who definitely found his way into trouble from time to time while growing up.

that started really pushing the line. what i tell my kids today, is our parents taught us.... we know right from wrong and many of us are chosing wrong. (i am working on 48). but what we are not giving our children is the knowledge of right and wrong. so though our generations knows the difference, their generation is clueless. yes it is our generation that is fucking up with our kids in selfisness and self centerness, but it is their generation that is the mess. and ultimately it is up to the kids to figure out. not fair. it really is not fair. but.... there really isnt a choice. it is a world of sink or swim for these kids until we start getting serious in our parenting.

She takes the car without permission, drives down the street ignores police, bumps a police car and then tries to escape. Dad decides that she needs to be taught a lesson and files charges.

And unless you know the inner workings of this family you might want to tone down the whole wiring, home environment thing.

when you have a 12 yr old behaving like this, making these choices, i can almost guarentee it is in the home environment.

poster that disagrees with you

i am your back up, wink

i try, yet sometimes forget

Most men keep their keys in their pocket and only take them out to use them.

Either this girl is an accomplished pickpocket or there is something else going on here, especially given that this is the second time it has happened.

I have spare keys in my kitchen. Not that I have kids or even thought for a second of taking my dad's car for a joy ride.

A rational adult would make sure they did not have access to spare keys again.

Plus this happened at a hospital, not the home, this would imply that the girl planned ahead and took they keys at home and waited until her father was distracted at the hospital.

But I'll say that kids can be sneaky.

she'd only be capable of running off with the car if she were Houdini.

I say "fucked-up family."

could be that he put his keys down somewhere and she took them. There is a lot we don't know, obviously. But it sounds like this poor father has his hands full with a sick baby and a 12-year old who is acting out for attention or something. My guess is that he drops the charges of grand theft auto eventually.

I could see this happening far more easily with a woman, women keep their keys in their purse or bag usually, lifting them would be easy.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find this little girl is being either neglected or abused somehow, any parent that would want their 12 year old daughter charged with grand theft auto is not quite right in the head, IMO.

Really? I guess I'm not most men -- when I get home, I leave my keys on the counter or hang them on a hook near the door. I don't carry them around with me. And I guess the first five guys in my office that I asked about this aren't most men either -- they all do the same thing that I do.

Do you lay your keys out when you go the restaurant, hospital, church or whatever?

my bad -- I should've read the story more carefully. It is odd, although I can think of ways that she could've gotten the keys without being a master pickpocket. For example, if they were in his jacket and he took his jacket off, it might not be that hard to get them.

But you're right to point out this twist in the story.

Yeah, you have a point there, that could have been what happened.

I'm pretty absent minded if I'm concentrating on something and have learned to always put my keys in the same place, a pants pocket, because if I lay them down when I'm distracted they might as well have dropped into another dimension as far as my ability to remember where they are goes.

Even during that brief time in the 80s when I wore a fanny pack, my keys were in my pocket. Losing my wallet is a pain in the ass, but losing my keys is CATASTROPHE.

I told him a long time ago if his car gets stolen don't look at me, you're riding your bike to work, bub.

People have different habits with their keys, regardless of gender.

I had a car that would randomly lock itself once in a while..

I learned the hard way to never, ever leave keys in the car.

He's a trusting soul, it's a small town, and we drive old cars, so ....... it's not likely someone would take them anyway.

...that I grew up in a long ago era....

I took (stole) my mom's car (age 13 and 14) a couple of times but was never caught. I was a hellion and luckily I grew out of it. The era (70's) and the rural area made it a much less dangerous situation (or at least that is how I rationalize it with my rose colored glasses

:evilgrin: )

Or taser her? Or beat her with clubs?

:sarcasm:

And now all of the sudden, it's just not that cute any more. I've seen that more than once. Parents who refused to discipline their kids when they were little because they were all worried about "limiting the child's expression" and bullshit like that. Surprise surprise, the little brats grew into totally unmanageable adolescents, and the parents are now all in a dither about how to handle them and what to do about their destructive behaviors. It's too late now.

Wondering is not assuming.

:sarcasm:

Hormones can make kids go nuts for a little while, even those disciplined consistently and normally great kids. She was stupid to do it but it doesn't mean she was being abused in any way or that her parents weren't doing their job.

:eyes:

:eyes:

Fumes are a bit strong today I guess...

It was a moronic implication to make..

Charming

I would never do such a thing, and you're quite a ____ for saying otherwise.

The guilty flee when none pursueth..

The poster you replied to was speaking of the father in the OP.

:hi:

Your insanity is showing. :freak: You're quite a ____

i had a couple of friends back in the day who would have run-ins with the police...they would call their dads to come bail them out, and their dads would essentially tell them "it's YOUR mess, YOU stew in it!"

I am going to withhold most of my judgement of them. It's obvious that the kid has a problem. Why is another can of worms. It's a mess whatever it is.

As for juvie, I know juvies that are very harsh. They are prisons in most respects. When I taught school, I hated it when a kid was sent for an evaluation at juvie. They came back worse even if they weren't there long.

Where is the mother? Is it a stepmother? Is the 19 mo a stepsibling? Is this kid left to fend for herself
while the 19 mo is getting all the attention? Does the 19 mo have a chronic illness? Is there no mother in the picture at all? Is mom deployed?

After the first joyride, what did the father (and notice no mention of mom)do? Did he get any help
for the girl?

What behaviors are going on at school? Have teachers been concerned and tried to get dad's (and mom's?)
attention?

This is a pathetic example of newspaper writing. No wonder people aren't reading papers anymore.

...especially so considering the lack of info/backstory.

me that she's acting out because of her 19 month old sibling.

12 years old is the beginning of the bad emotional time for young girls - if they were the least bit spoiled or had attention centered pretty much solely on them up to that time, they become insufferable - reverting to the emotional age of two and acting out in family situations is common. They'll act oh-so-"good" - considerate, attentive, respectful and mature - to strangers and their friends, but family or people who they are familiar with on a day to day basis? Not so good - in fact, pretty much disdainful, bordering on confrontational sometimes.
They tend to think that since they are no longer "daddy's little baby girl" and are starting to enter the adult world, they should get the "respect" (or really, privileges) of the adult world. And if Daddy and Mommy keep treating them like a kid, well, that's disrespectful to them.

This from experience - the kidlet started being secretive and making sure we didn't know all her friends and started "running away from home" to those friends at 14 because she was sure she knew everything there was to know, (being a professional victim from living with her mother until she was 12 and experiencing the multitude of boyfriends that woman collected, then discarded). She couldn't understand she wasn't our "best friend" like she was at her mother's (until she got too much for Mom to handle) - how dare we ask her to be part of the family, help around the house, and stick to a schedule like going to school every weekday? How dare we not let her do whatever she wanted to without comment - or not remain the constant center of our attention? It's all our fault we made her so miserable she had to throw that tantrum and kick holes in the wall, or steal money, or run away to "Katie's", where Katie's mom lets them do anything they want - even at one in the morning.

Unless they've already done something disastrously stupid, even the most stable Tweeners and Teenagers still tend to have no clue that acting out, attitudes and actions have consequences - that is the last awareness that tends to develop.
I'm thinking that's what this girl's father was trying to teach her - actions have consequences.

Haele

To prevent me from getting my hands around her neck. :spank: