Now imagine all those neighbors calling the police and having them waste time tracking down a group of 8th graders when there are real criminals to monitor. These kids’ behaviors had negative effects on the town and the police’s responsiveness - it’s not ok. |
Having sex, drinking, smoking weed? What 8th grade single mom environment are you used to |
| Those poor kids. That was normal behavior when I was a kid, and we did it all the time. No one answers their doorbells anymore, but still... |
I never ran the neighborhood at 10 pm and I never rang people’s doorbells and ran. And I don’t know any kids who did. We did do prank calls via the telephone though. |
+1. You get brought home by the police, you don’t get to wait a day to tell mom and dad at your convenience . Op needs to tell the parents asap. |
This. It's overzealous policing. Police stopped and picked up kids for walking around? That's ridiculous. What law was broken? Even the ding dong ditch - someone called the cops? Because of . . . why exactly? That said, even though it was an overreaction, because the police were involved you need to let the other parents know immediately. And where do you live, OP, that people would open fire because of this? As an aside, the kids obviously are white, because otherwise we'd be reading about this in the paper, and a few of them would be dead. |
Yeah, the police were definitely worried about the kids. [massive eyeroll] Gimme a break. |
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I’m just imagining some poor old woman in bed whose doorbell rings and she has to get up slowly and painfully and go to the door, all for some dumb prank. Or some woman home alone who sees teenagers darting around her lawn and then knock on her door. I would be absolutely terrified.
This is not a funny prank for post pubescent males to play- banging on doors where there might be one teenage girl home alone? Or an elderly person? If I saw a bunch of teen boys look like they were trying to get me to come to the door I’d absolutely call the cops and I wouldn’t sleep that night |
| It might be funny if it were daytime and they were like 9 years old. After dark, teenage young men? Umm no , sorry. |
Fine. It's nasty (in your mind, but we'll go with that). Still not illegal, and calling the police (or pulling a gun!!) is absurd. |
You must not live near W schools. |
It is illegal, which is the part that is absurd. |
Prude! |
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This is pretty typical 8th grade boy behavior. My kids have ding dong ditched and my nephew in another city has done it also. I agree that it’s not safe, given all the paranoid gun nuts. My son and our neighbor got busted on someone’s Ring doorbell and they told us about it. We made it clear to DS that this is dangerous and he is not allowed to leave our house unsupervised unless he understands that he cannot do this again.
I think having the cops catch them is the best possible outcome. They will now likely be terrified to try this again. Being scared is punishment enough IMO. I would let all the other parents know what happens in person when they pick up their kids. |
Some teenage boys acting like they’re trying to gain access to my house, or lure me outside, at 10pm if I were home alone? They’re lucky they weren’t shot. Time for them to learn they aren’t kids anymore. |