[Vision2020] Kid Arrested for Playing With Christmas Present

[Tom Hansen]

>From CNN at:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/05/christmaspresent.arrest.ap/index.html

One minute the kids are opening their Christmas presents early.  The next
thing you know, they're praying for a telephone call from the governor.

Book 'em, Dano. 

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Kid arrested for playing with Christmas present

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- A fed-up mother had her 12-year-old son
arrested for allegedly rummaging through his great-grandmother's things and
playing with his Christmas present early.

The mother called police Sunday after learning her son had disobeyed orders
and repeatedly taken a Game Boy from its hiding place at his
great-grandmother's house next door and played it.

He was arrested on petty larceny charges, taken to the police station in
handcuffs and held until his mother picked him up after church.

"My grandmother went out of her way to lay away a toy and paid on this thing
for months," said the boy's mother, Brandi Ervin. "It was only to teach my
son a lesson. He's been going through life doing things ... and getting away
with it."

Police did not release the boy's name.

The mother said that her son was found in the last year to have attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder, but that his medicine does not seem to help.

She said he faces an expulsion hearing at his school Wednesday. Rock Hill
Police Capt. Mark Bollinger said the boy took a swing at a police officer
assigned to the school last month. He has been suspended from school since
then.

The boy's case will be presented to Department of Juvenile Justice officials
in York County, who will decide what happens to him, Bollinger said. His
mother hopes he can attend a program that will finally scare him straight.

"It's not even about the Christmas present," she said. "I only want positive
things out of it. ... There's no need for him to act this way. I'd rather
call myself than someone else call for him doing something worse than this."

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
sideways, chocolate in one hand, a drink in the other, body thoroughly used
up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO. What a ride!'"