Police being nonchalant

[wakeupcall]

Ya know, I was proud of difficult child. Last evening he came in from playing basketball with some older boys and handed H what he'd found on the ground at the park (in our subdivision).....a gorgeous, hand-blown glass marijuana pipe!! difficult child is almost fourteen (going on 10), and he truly had no clue what it was, just that it was pretty. SO, I sure didn't want it in MY house, so I marched my little boy to the police station to "turn it in". The police office was SO nonchalant it made me hoppin' mad! He said that all he was going to do was throw it away. He could have at least said, "Thank you, young man, for doing the right thing!", or something similiar. Here I was trying to take the opportunity to make an impression on my son and what did I get...NOTHING! Would it have hurt that officer to have made my son feel a wee bit important? It could have gone a looooong way with him. It just ticks me off that we seem to get almost NO support in even the smallest of ways.

 

[tiredmommy]

What a wasted opportunity to make a strong impression on a child. I'd be tempted to give a call to the station to let one of the sergeant's know what your experience was; not to complain but rather to request difficult child get a note or call to follow-up for doing the right thing.

 

[susiestar]

The police didn't send the message that it was unimportant.

The officer sent the message that it is not important to police. Since the cop didn't think it was a big deal then surely it won't hurt if I just try it, or even something else. Our parents tell us how important it is to stay away from drugs, but the police don't care so we don't have to worry."

THAT is the message the officer sent.

I would be on the phone with the head honcho for the police in your area. Skip the little guy at the precinct office. Go to the Chief of Police or the Sheriff. Make a HUGE deal out of it, not because he threw it away but because he did that in a way that told your son the police don't care if you smoke pot.

Gee, I wonder what the voters would say about that the next time he comes up for reelection? (Our Sheriff is elected, not sure about other areas).

If you want to go all out, speak to the Mayor also.

This Board Auntie is super proud of him.

 

[BusynMember]

Agree with Ms. SuperStar above

Call the PD again and ask for someone in charge. Tell them what happened and why you are disappointed, then I'd ask if one of the youth officers can talk to my son about how he did a good thing and why and what it means to have this sort of thing in his possession. He needs a handshake and a rub on the head. And a good lesson in between all that praise. It's sad that the police are so desensitized t hat they would pass up an opportunity to say "thanks!" when a child does the right thing.

 

[gcvmom]

Wow. What a moron! I agree with everyone here... call a higher-up and raise cane!

And major, major Kudos to your difficult child! He absolutely did the right thing.

FWIW, when I was about that age, I found somebody's tiny little pot farm in a field behind our house. They had about a 1/2 dozen seedlings growing in a large plastic bowl. They sort of looked like tomato seedlings, but as I carried the bowl home and pondered why someone would go to the trouble of hiding tomato seedlings out in the middle of a giant field of weeds, I began to suspect that they were marijuana plants.

I walked in the front door and proudly showed my parents what I'd found, and asked them if we should call the cops. My dad, being the difficult child that he is, told me he'd take care of it, and he took the plants from me. About a week later, he had the seedlings growing in a hydroponic system on the back patio! That's right -- he took care of the situation alright! He kept them for himself and began what was to be about a two year experiment in growing, harvesting, and smoking his own pot.

Another hypocritical case of "Do As I Say, Not As I Do." My dad was notorious for that.

 

[DaisyFace]

Wakeupcall--

I don't think the police realized that you were trying to make an impression on your son. They don't get a lot of that every day.

I recently took my ten year old in to the police to file a report (not a major criminal case, to be sure) and officers clearly did not feel it was worth bothering with--until I said to them "Look, I told my son that he could make this report and I think that it is important that he stands up for himself and I have no intention of invalidating him."

With that, the officers spoke to my son very seriously and took down his information and thanked him for coming in to make a report. It was just a few minutes out of their day....but it made my son feel very important and that he had been taken seriously.

Officers may not have realized that the incident was so important to you.

Plus--I may be mistaken, but I think that there are tons of laws on the books making the use of marijuana illegal--but there are few laws on the books making the selling of drug accessories illegal. So that beautiful pipe may have been purchased legally in one of the many, funky, hippie boutiques that offer that sort of thing. If that's the case, it wuld make the turning in of such a pipe even less important to the police.

--DaisyF

 

[DDD]

I wouldn't raise cain but I would politely call and ask if someone could drop a short note or stop by for a second to reinforce the concept of sharing with law enforcement and telling the truth.

Regarding drug accessories, I know for a fact that many a kid has been charged with possession of paraphenalia where we live. Yep, our kid is one of many. DDD

 

[DammitJanet]

It is a real funny area regarding paraphernalia. One can sell such things because they can claim that they are selling them for legal uses such as smoking tobacco. Hence all the convenience stores that legally sell wrapping papers and blunts and blunt wraps in all those fancy flavors. But let someone get caught just outside that store with those same papers and they can be charged with a drug paraphernalia charge!

If that pipe didnt have drug residue on it, it wasnt really illegal. Even if it did, the cops arent going to make a big deal out of it unless they catch a person with it and some pot. You can call down to the precinct and ask them to call your son and tell him he did the right thing. They will probably do that for you. Or call the school and ask the DARE officer to talk to him.

 

[wakeupcall]

Thanks for the support, everyone. The pipe had PLENTY of pot residue in it. I guess it just hurt my feelings that we have preached and preached and then faced with something like this the opportunity was lost TO AN OFFICER! It still fries me. I'm going to send an email to the head of our neighborhood crime watch this evening. 'Let them know that the police basically shrugged his shoulders. This neighborhood crime watch was just formed last month; I don't think they will like it much. I should have kept the pipe and taken it with me to the next meeting....could be some have never seen such a thing. (I called my 39 year old daughter in MA and she said she'd NEVER seen a marijuana pipe.......yes, she was sheltered )