House vandalized, and Sheriff's deputies caught the kids!

General General Discussion
1

Over the past year or so I’ve had a few instances of kids ringing the doorbell or banging on the door late at night and running away. Sometimes more than once in the same night. Mostly it was during the summer. It stopped after I almost caught the bastards. I was in the room next to the front door, and when they hit the bell I ran to the door with a Surefire E2DL and lit up a couple of them as they tried to hide across the street behind some shrubs. They ran behind that house and I followed them, but they scattered in the dark and that was that.

So late tonight, I’m busy free floating the barrel on my new Savage 93R17BTVLSS and there’s a loud bang/crash seemingly from the garage after midnight. I grabbed my Surefire and ran outside and saw movement down the street and heard another loud crash noise. I saw that my garage door had footprints on it and two of the panels had been caved in a couple inches.

I gave chase and saw one of them from a distance and lit him up with the Surefire, but again they had scattered. So I went back home, told my wife what was going on and then waited near a neighbor’s house who had called the Sheriff. We noticed that another neighbor’s mailbox had been knocked off as well. When the deputy arrived, we went back to my house, showed him the damage and got his business card with the case number on it. He said they would get back with me if they found the kids. I figured it wouldn’t lead to anything.

A couple hours later I’m in bed and the doorbell rings. Goddamn it! Bastards are back just to screw with me! Then they knocked and I could see them shining a flashlight through the front door window.

So now we have criminal trespass and I don’t know if they are trying to start some shit or what. I grabbed my Walther P99 from the electronic safe in the bedroom since it has weaponlight and the Surfire was on the other side of the house. As I approached the door I still saw the flashlight shining in - like they were taunting me for using a flashlight on them earlier, or casing the house to see what was inside! Now I’m really thinking they want to start some shit.

Pause what I say now I only say as a public service announcement, and not as an invitation to criticism. I’ve been thinking a lot about this for the last couple hours.

I threw open the door and wasn’t the kids, it was the deputy returning to tell me he caught them. A phone call would have been a better idea instead of emulating what the idiot kids had done in the past. Let’s just say he wasn’t happy that I answered the door with a gun in hand. I gave it to him at his request and went to put some street clothes on. When I came back to the door, he gave me my gun back, and then gave me a stern lecture about it.

Now back to the story:

So then the Deputy drove me over to one of the kid’s houses. Present were all 6 kids that had been involved, along with parents for 5 of them - one kid’s parents were out of town. They all lived in a high-dollar subdivision across the road from my subdivision, and were 15-16 years old. Only two had kicked my garage door, so only two could be charged with anything. So I was given the option not to press charges and the parents would chip in to pay restitution for the damage. This was a tough decision, and I’d like to hear what everyone else would do in this situation…

2

Press charges. If you let these kids get bailed out by mom and dad now it will teach them nothing. If you press charges you door will get paid for as well as hopefully teaching those little shits a lesson. Just my $.02.

3

What Doc said. They will get nothing out of this most likely if they are first offenders but they would have to pay for the damages. On another note if they get busted again they wont get off as easy. So.I would definitely have them charged.

4

Press charges, more than likely they will get community service, and their records sealed at 18 (as long as they have not been charged with anything in the past, and stay clean). The other ones may retaliate, and do it all over again. I would get their address and send the parents the estimate for the door repair. Make them pay to fix it. If you have to, take them to small claims.

I don’t understand why people are given the choice of pressing charges or not. Someone commits a crime, and they get off with a lecture from an officer. A guy beats his wife to a bloody pulp, and she doesn’t want to press charges?

You do the crime, you serve the crime, simple enough.

5

I’ll admit that I did participate in ding-dong ditching when I was younger but they seem a little old to be doing that crap. We definitely didn’t damage anyone’s property and we also knew mailbox destruction was a felony and a federal offense, so that never entered our minds.

If the kids were degenerates and the parents seemed carefree and disconnected with their kids, I would most likely have pressed charges. However, if the parents seemed genuinely disappointed and the kids were just wannabe rebel teenage punks who got carried away and were truly repentant, I would give them the benefit of the doubt. I think a good ass-chewing by you would suffice. These things are not difficult to pick up on.

But someone sure as hell would be paying for my garage.

6

What most of the posts said.
Make good use of this golden opportunity to help to protect your neighborhood.
Don’t waste any mercy or charity on these rich punks or their parents. Save the charity for somebody who deserves it.

7

Bang em hard…That kind of crap could get someone shot…

BRAVO1

8

Think back to the feeling you get when you hear these loads noises at night. Were you not somewhat scared? It sounds like the kids need all the discipline they can get. Probabtion or community service can’t hurt anything. I’d do whatever I could to assure they won’t do it to others.

9

Press charges, I hate to see a kid get jammed up, but this doesn’t seem to be an isolated incident and they are too old to not know better.

10

I hate to say it, but press charges. kids just don’t learn lessons anymore. Cost mom and dad a little more in fines and the embarrassment that they have raised “those kind of kids” and maybe, juts maybe something will be done.

11

I would press charges. They would get no mercy from me. Their actions could have done a huge amount of damage to your life if things had went another direction. Screw em.

12

If you judge them to be relatively good kids getting misguided kicks, go Walt Kowalski on them. Make them your slaves for a week or so and send them around to your neighbor’s houses doing whatever work you think needs to be done.

13

Get off my lawn! :stuck_out_tongue:

14

Damn Right:

Those little turds and thier bleating sheeple mommies and daddies have no clue.
They are completely and willfully insulated from the realities that many of the regulars on this forum recognize from experience.
:mad:

ETA:

Stick around and I’ll tell you how I really feel.
:smiley:

15

press charges, teach those little trolls a lesson.

16

Press charges.

Random acts of vandalism are hard to solve and prosecute. Who knows how many others were the victims of these young gentlemen.

17

i would be remiss if I did not add that in my youth, I did a couple of things that i probably should have spent a night or two in jail. I had one true run-in with the law when same friend was shoplifting, and it put the fear of God in me.

I truly did learn my lesson after that. I never vandalized other people’s property. I never tried to do anything that would individually hurt anyone.

Fact is, I just don’t think kids today “learn lessons” like they used to, mostly because the media sensationalizes violence and crime to the point where it is no real big deal. Kids know they will not get in any real trouble if caught, and parents are more worried about who they are gonna sue than accepting responsibility or making their kids accept responsibility for their actions.

18

+1 for hang’em high. This is the kind of nusiance crap that will lead to progressively worse acts. I’d think of pressing charges on 'em as a kind of intervention, it’ll suck for them in the short term, but over the long term it’ll be to their benefit.

I can’t think of one reason NOT to press charges. What’ll they learn from that? They’ll learn that they can run around destroying people’s property with no reprecussions. They need to learn that bad choices lead to bad consequences. Now if they experience the drawn out suckage of community service/counseling/ restitution it will make quite the impression on their impressionable young minds and hopefully teach them a valuable life’s lesson.

19

I’m for pressing charges and suing the parents for material damages and mental anguish. While I am generally against civil suits; this is one that I feel would be warranted.

Look at it this way, had those two punks injured themselves while in the commitment of this crime you probably would have been the defendant of a civil suit. Fry them and make their parents pay for it in more ways than one.

Good luck!!

20

PRESS CHARGES & make 'em pay restitution. :mad: Punks need to know that actions have consequences.

With all the break-ins we’ve had around here, little biotches would be lit up by MY Mossberg 500 these days. I caught a guy breaking into my neighbor’s house last fall. At Superior Court where he was bound over, victims from EIGHTEEN OTHER HOUSEHOLDS were also there - that’s JUST the ones he’d broken into, since he got out of the joint for B&E before!!!

I think you showed extraordinary restraint myself. Their parents are LUCKY they ain’t paying for their kids’ FUNERALS at this point.