Don’t think that police are going to let you off easy just because you’re in Elementary School… Cops in Post Falls, Idaho proved that no age is too young for them to arrest a child, after they took a 9-year-old-boy into custody, after he failed to appear in court.
The court appearance was for stealing a pack of chewing gum, an offense that seems could have been resolved by a simple call to the boy’s parents.
Barry McHugh, the prosecutor for Kootenai County, says that he now believes he made a mistake by issuing the arrest warrant for the boy.
“After reviewing the file, I have concluded that my office’s request to have an arrest warrant issued was a mistake under the circumstances,” McHugh said. “I regret this having taken place and will do everything in my power to avoid this type of mistake in the future.”
The story was so outrageous that we had to call the police department and prosecutor’s office to confirm when we heard about it. But the Post Falls Police Chief Scot Haug even tried to defend much of the entire criminal process. He explained that the boy was accused of stealing a pack of gum.
“Officers were legally obligated” to make an arrest, he claimed, then taking the Elementary School child to a juvenile detention center in Coeur d’Alene.
“He was not handcuffed, he was not searched. He was not put it into jail, they basically just gave him a ride,” Haug tried to smooth over the incident.
But as for the warrant, he doesn’t agree with that.
“When the warrant was issued, it was shocking to our staff. I’ve never seen that happen before. I think this case slipped through the cracks.”
“Knowing the child’s age, the charged offense, and other circumstances in the case, we should have attempted this other option,” a court diversion program, McHugh said of his office’s “mistake.”
Source: http://truthfight.com/police-arrest-9-year-old-failure-appear-court-gum-charge/