Kids could end up killing someone with “window popping” game.
Earlier this month a Lakewood woman suffered shell shock, following a barrage of bricks and cinder block pieces through her front window—bricks and glass landed just feet from where she was standing, she says. She screamed at her family to “get down” and her husband took off after the vandals. He caught up with them and what he found was shocking — a few junior high-aged boys with little brothers, around age 5 or 6, in tow. He first nabbed one of the little ones, whose brother came back for him.
“I did it,” confessed the older brother. “Take me instead. ” Husband held the older boy — the others ran away — for 50 minutes waiting for police to arrive, during which time the boy confessed his name, school (J.L. Long Middle School) and the names of the other culprits. All this happened around 7:30 p.m.
This is the second time in a matter of weeks that this family, who asked not to be named on Back Talk for now, has been attacked like this. I just got off the phone with the victim, who tells me it has been tough trying to follow the happenings of the case because of the juvenile code. While the suspect was cuffed and taken to the police station, chances are he’ll receive little more than a slap on the wrist, she says. And though he named his accomplices and they subsequently confessed, they will face no legal ramifications at all.
The kid who was caught told the victims and police that he was playing a game called ‘window popping’ — I think the name says it all.
I’m sure these kids probably got a good scare, courtesy of Husband (“They are lucky he is kind,” the victim says), but I think they need more than that.
How much you want to bet that this frightening car window popping of late is just an advanced form of the aforementioned window popping? Does a 14-year old (or an 8-year old) have to maul or kill someone before the crime is taken seriously?
The victim in the Lakewood case got the impression police looked at this as kids-behaving-badly, or ‘mischief’, but if they keep getting away with it, the mischief could very feasibly lead to manslaughter —it’s just a matter of time.
