Six-year-old in North Carolina arrested for picking flower from lawn

[laughing dog]

This was not supposed to go to court. When a very young person does something that an adult would be held accountable for, and enters the criminal justice system by way of a civilian complaint, the complaint is served to the PARENTS of the youth to answer in court. The outcome would never be jail... it would be community service and/or referral to mental health care (out or inpatient).
In this case, the parents failed to show up to court, so the court was forced to serve the youth directly. Once the Judge came to understand what happened, he dismissed the case.

So, the court asked to speak with the parents about the complaint, they failed to appear, so the kid got pulled in. This was a case of black parents being disengaged from their child... which is a statistic that police records show... that white kid's parents take accountability and that black parents just want the cops to leave their kids alone to do whatever they want to anyone's property.
Complaints are surprisingly evenly split between black and white kids... surprising to me, I mean. However, white parents show up for court 80% of the time and black parents show up 40% of the time.

According to the newspaper that broke the story (https://journalnow.com/north-carolina-sends-6-year-olds-to-court-why-some-say-its-time-for-change/article_e2a15a82-8383-11eb-91ee-43ce7c88753b.html

Cases start with a complaint being filed against a child. During an intake process, court counselors determine whether the complaint should be dismissed, go to court or deferred if the youth participates in a community program, social services and completes other promised action.

My reading from that is that the court counselors effed up big time. The complaint should have been dismissed at that level before it got to a judge.

Furthermore, from the same article

When a cop picks up a white boy, he takes him to his parents," said Mary Stansell, juvenile chief at the Wake County Public Defender's Office. "But if he is black, he takes him to the state."

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Maybe the parents gave the notice the just perusal it deserved. This is showing the insanity of subjecting children as young as 6 to the legal system.

Then again, maybe the parents are so accustomed to ignoring their children's bad behavior that they blew off a court summons. Sounds like a kid on the road to prison.
Tom

You must be reading something else, because we are talking about allegedly only picking a Tulip from someone's garden near his bus stop.

Also, the whole, "It's the parents" schtick is old. In this case, we haven't even established there was anything notable done that could be considered wrong. Forget about throwing the child's parent(s) under a bus.

 

[Elixir]

Maybe the parents gave the notice the just perusal it deserved. This is showing the insanity of subjecting children as young as 6 to the legal system.

Then again, maybe the parents are so accustomed to ignoring their children's bad behavior that they blew off a court summons. Sounds like a kid on the road to prison.
Tom

You must be reading something else, because we are talking about allegedly only picking a Tulip from someone's garden near his bus stop.

Also, the whole, "It's the parents" schtick is old. In this case, we haven't even established there was anything notable done that could be considered wrong. Forget about throwing the child's parent(s) under a bus.

Really. It's not like they were selling cigarettes.

 

[ZiprHead]

Maybe the parents gave the notice the just perusal it deserved. This is showing the insanity of subjecting children as young as 6 to the legal system.

Then again, maybe the parents are so accustomed to ignoring their children's bad behavior that they blew off a court summons. Sounds like a kid on the road to prison.
Tom

He's fucking SIX, Tom.
Sheesh. I'd ignore any summons or citation issued on a six year old if I had one. Especially if it was for picking flowers one flower.

FTFY

 

[laughing dog]

He's fucking SIX, Tom.
Sheesh. I'd ignore any summons or citation issued on a six year old if I had one. Especially if it was for picking flowers.

But the parents aren't. They apparently didn't care what happened to the kid enough to respond to a summons served to them. They're action of blowing off a summons is why the cops involved the kid in the system. The parents picked this state of affairs.
Tom

That is utter nonsense. The parents did not choose to accept a dumbass complaint. The parents did not choose to enforce the summons.

Do we know that the parents received the summons in time? Do we know if the parents could get off work (or lose their job) to appear for a summons?

In my view, blaming the parents for this incredible fuck up is inane.

 

[WAB]

The most immoral, twisted, sick thing about the whole fiasco is the idiot who would report such a thing, or even think it was a big problem.

(The word 'idiot' used for my personal gratification.)

 

[ronburgundy]

I'm not known for having a silver-linings outlook, but hey, at least the cop didn't shoot him and claim they thought the tulip was a gun.

 

[TomC]

He's fucking SIX, Tom.
Sheesh. I'd ignore any summons or citation issued on a six year old if I had one. Especially if it was for picking flowers.

But the parents aren't.

So what? They gave the notice the response it deserved. But being black, that wasn't good enough.
Now YOU say the six year old is headed to jail, because his parents failed to show the extreme unwarranted subservience expected of them.

Playing the race card?
Maybe you think black* parents are too stupid to realize that ignoring court summons doesn't make them go away?

Tom

* I'm not even sure the parents are black. I don't care. Nothing about my opinion has anything to do with race.

 

[Elixir]

So what? They gave the notice the response it deserved. But being black, that wasn't good enough.
Now YOU say the six year old is headed to jail, because his parents failed to show the extreme unwarranted subservience expected of them.

Playing the race card?
Maybe you think black* parents are too stupid to realize that ignoring court summons doesn't make them go away?

Tom

* I'm not even sure the parents are black. I don't care. Nothing about my opinion has anything to do with race.

Of course, YOU are not the racist here Tom. The racists are the complainer and the cop who wrote the summons.
The parents, whatever their color, were quite right to ignore the stupid summons or notice or whatever it was.
A fucking tulip. They probably thought it was a joke, just like the judge did.

 

[Gun Nut]

Were they? Are the courts completely at the whim of protocol?
Sounds like it didn't need to bring the youth in at all.

No, they didn't and shouldn't have. They are not at the whim, it sounds like it was an error because the child was too young at the time of the offense to be called in.

So, the court asked to speak with the parents about the complaint, they failed to appear, so the kid got pulled in. This was a case of black parents being disengaged from their child... which is a statistic that police records show... that white kid's parents take accountability and that black parents just want the cops to leave their kids alone to do whatever they want to anyone's property.

We know this happened? Can it be demonstrated that the parent(s) didn't care or didn't have time or had no idea what in the heck was going on?

yes, it is a matter of the record that the parents previously failed to appear. I did not make a supposition as to why. they factually did not, though. I proceeded to site statistics (Which are further sited in the original article cited by the OP).

We don't know what exactly happened with the 6 year old, and what damage they actually caused. But certainly, not without multiple situations of wanton destruction (of which is a 6 year old really capable of), why did anyone need to be involved?

That we don't know. I suspect that the property owner tolerates (or stopped tolerating) recurring destruction of property due to the proximity to a school bus stop. I have a story about that*

Complaints are surprisingly evenly split between black and white kids... surprising to me, I mean. However, white parents show up for court 80% of the time and black parents show up 40% of the time.

Is this in general for actual offenses or just garden pickings?

All police complaints - not just the ones you personally would raise or not


** My walk to the train I (used to) take to work takes me past a school bus stop that directly abuts someone's house (their front lawn). I always see kids laying around on that lawn... playing... messing around the outside of the house. I always thought what a terrible location... that I would never be able to feel comfortable with all those high school aged students all over my property.
One day, on the first day of school of the year, as I was walking by I witnessed the property owner outside with the kids, offering them snacks and welcoming them back to school. I was shocked at how nice that person was about it all... and then I realized what the alternative might look like... a bunch of vengeful kids, immune from prosecution for being minors, looking to one-up each other on what they could do to the "mean old person's" property...
There are a couple of ways to deal with them and this person had their method of trying to keep them respectful of her property through bribes rather than through police complaints.

 

[Trausti]

He's fucking SIX, Tom.
Sheesh. I'd ignore any summons or citation issued on a six year old if I had one. Especially if it was for picking flowers.

But the parents aren't. They apparently didn't care what happened to the kid enough to respond to a summons served to them. They're action of blowing off a summons is why the cops involved the kid in the system. The parents picked this state of affairs.
Tom

That is utter nonsense. The parents did not choose to accept a dumbass complaint. The parents did not choose to enforce the summons.

Do we know that the parents received the summons in time? Do we know if the parents could get off work (or lose their job) to appear for a summons?

In my view, blaming the parents for this incredible fuck up is inane.

You don’t ignore a summons and complaint no matter how dumb you think the allegations. Yes, the parents played a role in this silliness.

 

[TomC]

The racists are the complainer and the cop who wrote the summons.

Years of hearing such confident, but evidence free, accusations of racism is why I don't take accusations of racism particularly seriously any more. Not without solid evidence that racism played some part in an event. Solid evidence, not some vague reference to an old social media post.

Your post reinforced my observation that much, maybe most, of the racism in the USA is the product of an industry based on manufactured outrage. You know little or nothing about the complainants, the cop, or the history in this event. But that doesn't stop you from asserting that it's about racism.

What I see is irresponsible parenting. The kid wound up in court because irresponsible parents couldn't be bothered responding. That's the bottom line. Had they answered the summons, this wouldn't have happened.
Tom

 

[Trausti]

The racists are the complainer and the cop who wrote the summons.

Years of hearing such confident, but evidence free, accusations of racism is why I don't take accusations of racism particularly seriously any more. Not without solid evidence that racism played some part in an event. Solid evidence, not some vague reference to an old social media post.

Your post reinforced my observation that much, maybe most, of the racism in the USA is the product of an industry based on manufactured outrage. You know little or nothing about the complainants, the cop, or the history in this event. But that doesn't stop you from asserting that it's about racism.

What I see is irresponsible parenting. The kid wound up in court because irresponsible parents couldn't be bothered responding. That's the bottom line. Had they answered the summons, this wouldn't have happened.
Tom

As they say, the demand for racism far outstrips the supply.

 

[Elixir]

As they say, the demand for racism far outstrips the supply.

You haven't spent much time in North Carolina, have you?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So what? They gave the notice the response it deserved. But being black, that wasn't good enough.
Now YOU say the six year old is headed to jail, because his parents failed to show the extreme unwarranted subservience expected of them.

Playing the race card?
Maybe you think black* parents are too stupid to realize that ignoring court summons doesn't make them go away?

Tom

* I'm not even sure the parents are black. I don't care. Nothing about my opinion has anything to do with race.

Of course, YOU are not the racist here Tom. The racists are the complainer and the cop who wrote the summons.

We don't know the race of the complainer or the summoner.

The parents, whatever their color, were quite right to ignore the stupid summons or notice or whatever it was.

We don't know the extent what actually happened. So we don't know if this is accurate. We also don't know if the parent(s) had no time to address some ridiculous complaint.

They probably thought it was a joke, just like the judge did.

I'd be curious what the judge said in dismissing this. That might be the best indicator as to what happened, but we truly are in the dark on the details.

 

[Elixir]

we truly are in the dark on the details.

Right. So everything said here should be prefaced with "if the headline is accurate..."
And if the headline is accurate, A SIX YEAR OLD WAS ARRESTED FOR PICKING A FLOWER.
If the headline is accurate, fuck the complainer, the arresting officer and anyone else trying to make a criminal case out this.

 

[Trausti]

Interesting to me is that the kid was not arrested for cutting the Tulip but that the homeowner made a complaint. How did the homeowner know who the kid was? My irresponsible speculation is that the homeowner knew the parents and this is all about settling old scores.

 

[TomC]

we truly are in the dark on the details.

Right. So everything said here should be prefaced with "if the headline is accurate..."
And if the headline is accurate, A SIX YEAR OLD WAS ARRESTED FOR PICKING A FLOWER.
If the headline is accurate, fuck the complainer, the arresting officer and anyone else trying to make a criminal case out this.

Do you believe everything you see on the internet?

Or just the stuff that matches your worldview?

That's something I regularly criticize Trump supporters for doing. Believing anything they read that reinforces their preconceived worldview, while dismissing anything else as implausible.
Tom

 

[TomC]

As they say, the demand for racism far outstrips the supply.

You haven't spent much time in North Carolina, have you?

No, I haven't.
Explain to me why a 6y/o was in court, but his parents didn't show up?
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

we truly are in the dark on the details.

Right. So everything said here should be prefaced with "if the headline is accurate..."
And if the headline is accurate, A SIX YEAR OLD WAS ARRESTED FOR PICKING A FLOWER.
If the headline is accurate, fuck the complainer, the arresting officer and anyone else trying to make a criminal case out this.

Do you believe everything you see on the internet?

Or just the stuff that matches your worldview?

That's something I regularly criticize Trump supporters for doing. Believing anything they read that reinforces their preconceived worldview, while dismissing anything else as implausible.
Tom

But you are stating as fact stuff that hasn't even been provided in the record.