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Need advice about juvenile tresspasser

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StormSpotter

Junior Member
Sorry this is kinda long,

What is the name of your state: Kansas

Hello, and thank you for viewing my question. Ill start out by saying I live in a small North East Kansas somewhat quiet community. I am a married 29 year old male, and myself and two of my elderly neighbors are needing some advice about how to help resolve an issue.

We have a juvenile 14 year old male subject who thinks he can do anything he wants in the community. Last spring he was kicked out of school for fighting, and is not allowed to return to the school district, so his mother is "home schooling" him.

Here in the last few months, we have caught this individual tresspassing, peeping into windows, breaking into garages, and out in roaming town all hours of the night.

Roughly three weeks ago, we caught this 14 y/o male subject at 2AM along with the Sheriffs live in girlfriends children trying to break into my neighbors garage. Myself, my neighbor and a hired hand (we do body work on classic cars) caught them in the act. We stopped them and called the police department (15 miles away).

While I was on the phone call with the police the juveniles bolted on us, and ran to the home of the Sheriffs kids house. We sent the deputy to the sheriffs house and the two kids denied ever being out. They "where in bed asleep"

So the deputy came back and went to the home of the 14 year old. Who lives one house to the south of me. (2:45AM) The parrents denied the boy was out, but the deputy insisted on talking to the boy. The parents went inside, and of course he was not there. Then the boy came running up the street while the deputy was still there. 3AM They did not do anything to the boy and since that night we have had MANY problems.

I am trying to keep this short, but we decided to go to the court house and file a restraining order on the juvenile, so if we ever caught him again on our property we could press charges.
The court had us fill out a "Temporary Order of Protetion from stalking." which the judge signed off on it on October 2nd, and a hearing was placed on 10/22/08.

Yesterday, which was 10/22 we went to the court to hopefully extend the order. The judge did extend us with a "Order of continuance and extension of temporary orders of protection from stalking" till 11-4-08

The judge while in court told us we had 3 options. 1 we could drop the charges, 2 we could contunue until he found a statute to beable to press on a 14 y/o minor?? or, 3 (unsure if i am wording this correctly) Have the parents of the 14y/o reprosent their child or hire a lawyer.

The judge also told us that this two weeks we the plaintiffs should seek legal council about this also.

We are unsure of what to do. All we want is a paper trail to keep the ball rolling, and possibly convict this juvenile of damages he has caused to our properties. He has had many slaps on the hands before from the police, yet nothing has been done legally about it. We are afraid of one of these days, peeping into windows will not be enough for this kid, and he will break into someones home and do more... The juvenile does not intimidate me, but he does intimidate two other elderly neighbors who filed the protection of stalking order..

I hope this makes some since to you folks.. Please if you have any questions feel free to ask.. Being short of sleep on nightly patrols around the neighborhood have taken toll on myself and my neighbors worrying about what will this juvenile do next...

Thanks,
Ben aka StormSpotter
 


StormSpotter

Junior Member
yes, my question is.. What steps do we take next? I mean, the judge kinda left us in limbo.. Do we need to hire a lawyer to state our case? I have kept fairly good records of the times these juveniles been on our propeties and contacted the police.. but, the kids always deny it...

We don't know what to do.. Thats why I am here.. Is there a statue out that allows us to press charges to a juvenile on criminal trespassing and criminal damage to property? We are currently working on a old 63 Ford T-bird soft top, the car is worth 30k and scared to death this kid is going to go in and damage it...
 

seniorjudge

Senior Member
yes, my question is.. What steps do we take next? I mean, the judge kinda left us in limbo.. Do we need to hire a lawyer to state our case? I have kept fairly good records of the times these juveniles been on our propeties and contacted the police.. but, the kids always deny it...

We don't know what to do.. Thats why I am here.. Is there a statue out that allows us to press charges to a juvenile on criminal trespassing and criminal damage to property? We are currently working on a old 63 Ford T-bird soft top, the car is worth 30k and scared to death this kid is going to go in and damage it...
Getting a lawyer never hurts.

A good fence would probably help too.
 

StormSpotter

Junior Member
A good fence would probably help too.
We do have a fence around the property.. Has not stopped them yet.. They jump over it. We have went to the extent of putting up "driveway alarms" to warn us if someone/something comes into the drive way, or near the garage. But by the time we get outside, they have taken off, and running down the street to their house..
 

seniorjudge

Senior Member
We do have a fence around the property.. Has not stopped them yet.. They jump over it. We have went to the extent of putting up "driveway alarms" to warn us if someone/something comes into the drive way, or near the garage. But by the time we get outside, they have taken off, and running down the street to their house..
Razor wire makes a great accessory to a fence.
 

StormSpotter

Junior Member
Razor wire makes a great accessory to a fence.
True.. But there is an issue with that.. The home that has most of the activitiy at it also runs a daycare from the residence. We can not put up razor wire, due to the children playing in the yard that attend the daycare. We have put up bars in the windows of the garage though.

I guess my main question is.. Do we have a foot to stand on? I mean, we have caught the boy in the yard in the past. He is retaliating by targeting the garage, and their house. They have been caught throwing rocks at my dogs that are in my fenced in back yard. They go outside, well after dark and make my dogs bark until i get sick of it and bring them inside.. then they have free roam of the neighborhood.
 

StormSpotter

Junior Member
I understand my first post was very long winded. I hope to clear up my question here.

1. We caught this 14 y/o male juvenile in my neighbors yard after trying to break into his garage.

2. We contacted the police after we had stopped them, while on the phone with the police they ran.

3. Damage was found on his truck a couple days later, police report was filed.

4. Other neighbors had spotted this juvenile roaming out late at night, after midnight for the most part. Motion detecting lights always being tripped. We have also caught him peeking into windows on many homes. Many times after this juvenile has been detected by the lights you see him running torwards his home.

5. The morning of October 2nd 2008 the garage door was found opened, and we are 100% positive that the garage was locked up the night before. Contacted the police, another report was filed. The officer told us to look into a restraining order.

6. Same day we filed for a restraining order. The Court Clerk had us file a "Temporary Orders of Protection from Stalking" Judge signed off on it, and we recieved the order later that day. A Deputy dropped off the restraining order to the defendants home, and eplained to order to them. After the deputy dropped off the order, the mother of the juvenile went outside and started yelling in our general direction. Was yelling "Quit Harrassing my child, he has never done anything that you said he has!!"

7. Many of the past nights we have noticed a person/persons out in our yards hiding in the shadows. We have not ID'ed these persons, but shortly after us spotting them out, they take off running down the street, and then lights come on int the juveniles home.

8. The Hearing was held on October 22, 2008. The judge issued us a "Continuance and Extension of Temporary Orders of protection from stalking."
- The Defendant did not have a council, and wanted one
- The judge gave us a couple of options:
- A. Stopping the Protection of Stalking.
- B. Contuntuing the order, until he finds a statue. (We went with this because we are tired of this juvenile damaging property, and prowling around.)


Are we doing things right? Is there a "statue" that will allow us to get this juvenile convicted of criminal damage/trespassing. The way the world is going, I can see this juvenile will end up in prision sooner than later. I really feel that if we can get him some help before he gets much older, maybe he can get his life on the right path.
 

xylene

Senior Member
You caught them breaking into a building.

This is not a trivial matter.

Insist the child be arrested.
 

TheGeekess

Keeper of the Kraken
Burglar alarm with very loud siren (loud enough to wake the dead) and half a dozen motion detectors. Tie in a DVR w/IR (or extremely low-light) cameras to record when the alarm goes off. If your alarm professional is doing his job correctly, you'll have all the evidence you need to go to the authorities.
 

StormSpotter

Junior Member
We do have a el-cheepo IR camera from Harbor Freight recording to a VCR.. Unfortunantly I can not get the VCR to display the time/date on the film. We do have a video of a individual entering onto one of our properties and not comming out. I do not know if it will up hold in court though do to that issue.

Money is an issue.. I sure would love to get my hands on a better IR camera, the one we have does have a "night vision" to it.. But you have to be right on top of the camera to make out who it is.

Tonight could be interesting, No school for the kids tomorrow, and there is already 5 or 6 juvenile boys running around down the street.

Just got a phone call, they are on the move.. Ill check in shortly
 

StormSpotter

Junior Member
We normally do call the police.. But they have a scanner and listen to all the traffic on it. They know when the deputies are busy. In our county most of the time there is only 2 deputies on duty. We have went to the extent to have one off duty officer come and sit in the trees to watch these juveniles. Unfortunantly they did not catch anything that night..

We do have permission from the sheriff to detain the juvenile until officers arrive.. I don't think we will go to that extent.. as long as i get a picture of them on our property with will cell phone or a digital camera i have should do the job.
Time is on these individuals side... I have to sleep at some point in time, and they can stay up all night.. I can't do this much longer though...
 
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StormSpotter

Junior Member
Recient turn of events on this:

Today, the juveniles mother was out taking pictures of our properties. She was on her property, but taking photos of us while we were outside in our own yards. We called the Sheriffs Department, and had an officer come out. We explained our situation and though that this would be considered a violation.. Reason being, she took photos of my neighbors home, who opperates a daycare. Wouldn't her taking pictures of these children at the daycare be against the law? Some sort of violation of privacy? I mean, it works two ways.. We have a restraining order, plus she opperates a daycare... Photos of us, would be a violation because we do not want our photos taking and would be considered "contact" with us.. 2nd, invasion of privacy to the children at the daycare...

The deputy came out, and took a report from us about this, and then went and talked to the troubled juveniles mother. The mothers responce to the deputy was: "Our attorney" told us to take photos to build our case...

What case does she have? We caught her child trespassing on our property, we slapped them with a "Protection of Stalking" order... and now she is taking pictures of us trying to build her case? What case does she have? I mean, we pay attention to our property, we have started a neighborhood watch.. It it illegal to keep an eye on a juvenile known for damaging peoples properties?

Anyone got any ideas? Im I just going nuts?
 

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