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My RTV 6 colleague Jack Rinehart is reporting this evening that the teenage twins allegedly involved in the robbery at Don’s Guns have had more than one run-in with the law.
According to Jack, the two 14-year olds have been arrested 12 times this year for auto theft, one time for burglary and one for armed robbery.
And to make matters worse police say the two were involved in an armed robbery prior to breaking in at Don’s Guns.
Jack also reported that police believe the two were part of a juvenile gang that’s targeted Indy dealerships and involved in break-ins at seven dealerships and at least 25 cars.
And here’s the kicker, they were wearing home-detention monitors when they were arrested.
Someone here definitely needs a good rear-end kicking, and I’m not just talking about the twins.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I’ll say it: Soft judges make hard criminals! The juvenile judge must be living in liberal-land. Those CRIMINALS should have been incarcerated at the time of the crime…and, in any OTHER Indiana county, they would have been.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Of course somebody needs their A$$ kicked, but why is anybody surprised by this?
July 29th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
And this is why we have repeat offenders, because we are soft as hot butter on them. That many arrests should have had these two off the streets for years. Instead, this is what we get. I guess crime DOES pay, and that’s why we’re seeing more of it.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
And I spank naughty boys CONSENSUALLY and they pull out all their might. Go figure. Politics.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:01 am
Institute public gibbeting.
July 30th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Melyssa for Judge!
July 30th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Somebody ought to be kicking a judge or judges ass! Melyssa for Prosecutor!
July 30th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Isn’t the Juvenile Judge a former Republican Council member? So why assume it is “Liberal”? Labeling the participants in the judicial process only clouds the real issue. Parenting! Their parents are likely kids themselves. Further the kid-parent probably thinks society owes them food stamps, AFDC, cash, cash and more cash just for being born. I hate to sound racist here because it isn’t a race issue. It is and will always be a issue of parenting and respect for the community. Call someone liberal, castigating them etc solves nothing. Going after the politicians at election time and making it clear that kid-parents or kid-criminals will no longer be tolerated and make sure that the sentence fits the crime. Fill up that Juvenile prison system and throw away the keys. At 21 transfer them to the adult prisons and never let them out. These kids are already lost causes. They will never be contributing members of society.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Do you know how many “points” it takes to keep a juvenile delinquent in detention? A LOT.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:45 am
once again the police are doing the job they have been hired to do. the courts for what ever reason put the thugs back on the street. of course this makes our job twice as hard. will we ever learn? I say its time we put thugs back in the stocks on the public square so that we all can know who and where they are.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:05 am
I am personally involved in the vehicles that were stolen from dealerships and almost all of the local auto auctions. We were the ones to recover our vehicles because as we all know the police weren’t going to look for them so we did. When we found them they were being driven by juveniles. Most of them said they bought the cars from a friend for $500, and some of those cars were $50,000 cars, so obviously they weren’t too bright of kids. We would call the police when we found the cars and the police would do nothing about it, just let the kids go. But! the problem was even deeper than ever reported. There were a couple of the cars that were found that had been titled and registered to the person who actually stole that car. So not only did they steal the car, they had someone on the inside at the BMV that was helping them get a title and a registration to a stolen vehicle.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am
retired ipd— you say “the courts for whatever reason put the thugs back on the street”…. it’s not “whatever reason” None of us have to look far at all to know the biggest reason. The judicial/corrections system in Marion Co has in no way kept up with the need to expand. Like it or not, we have grown in need- population shifts, more crime, more arrests over the past 25 years, (and as retired ipd you saw this) but the City-Co Council was never ever willing to attempt to keep up with the demand by funding what was needed to keep thugs off the streets. The big jumps occurred during the 80s & 90s, Hudnut & Goldsmith years, but it was the CCC- the SerVaas led CCC- and not the mayors who were the problem. The CCC was never willing to honestly deal with the rising needs in the judicial system for jail space, sheriffs’ (ie jail admin) funding, courts, staff, prosecutors, pd. They were too stuck on “No New Taxes” idealism when it came to basic government, but the irony was there was ample new spending going on… but it was to create the amateur sports capital and Circle Center, and on and on and on…. When faced with the choice of making movers and shakers happy or keeping up with the costs of keeping citizens safe, they chose the former. So these practices of the 80s to 90s came home to roost in the 2000s.
Granted you will find some judges dealing out harsher sentences than others– but if you examine that you will find that is almost exclusively in the realm of non-violent (though not to say not serious) drug or driving (ie driving w/o or w. suspended license) crimes and not in crimes of violence of DUI/injury/death crimes. By and large judges are absolutely forced to go with home dentention and community corrections (by the way, how much do you think organizations/companies who run community corrections programs pay to lobbyists to keep the city & co using CC programs instead of jails??)
July 30th, 2008 at 10:34 am
What were the people that were monitoring the home detection devices doing when the things were going off. Who is to be held accountable for that error?
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Maybe we could institute a system where if your teenager is arrested more than once than the the parents have to foot the bill for court/jail costs. It seemed to get kids back to school when they were threatened to have welfare cut off if their kids didn’t show up.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Rufnek, normally the dealership thefts are an inside job. This makes it doubly complicated because the Prosecutor’s Office is too cowardly to even try an auto theft case where the suspect has the keys to the car (they consider that plausible deniability.) I agree buying a $50,000 car for $500 is obviously receiving stolen property, but again the Prosecutor’s Office lacks the gumption to touch these cases. If the steal is less than a day or two old they might, but thugs are figuring out that stealing a car and leaving it in their garage for a week is a way to stay in business. It’s very common for someone to have been arrested 8 or 9 times for auto theft without a single one of the arrests getting filed.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Bit-you are absolutely wrong. If we don’t have any prison space, why were prisoners being shipped TO us from Arizona? Because we had too much prison space. Judges in this county send them to community corrections instead of prison whenever they can.
Blame them, not the lack of facilities for prisoners.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Because, James, state prisons are not and do not serve the same purpose as county jails. AND, bed space is but a small piece of the puzzle. We could ship Marion Co jailees to state prisons, where there remains some empty space, but we don’t have the ability to fund their transportation or the staff to monitor them when they are there, which would be a Marion Co responsibility (and that doesn’t begin to address the other issues raised: judicial staff to efficiently process, prosecutors, pds, etc). When Arizona prisoners came Arizona paid the costs to transport and care for them.
I’m not arguing to be right, I’m just pointing out what the problem is. Even if there is prison space we - Marion Co, who must bear the sole cost- have no ability to keep them there. That’s just on the jail side, not the state prison side either. For that, look to the Indiana General Assembly who likewise continue to pass new crimes and at one point in the Bayh and O’Bannon years were gleeful about building more prisons, but wouldn’t fund the DOC to staff them.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Melyssa said:
“And I spank naughty boys CONSENSUALLY and they pull out all their might. Go figure. Politics.”
I would love to see you a judge…substitute Cat o’ Nine tails for gavel, appropriate leather wear under the robes!!!
July 30th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
All who are saying we need more jail space are totally clueless as to what the real problem is….THE COURTS!! I know that there are standing “unwritten” rules that if it wasn’t a “violent” crime the kids will NOT be in Juvy. The courts release them on probation and the probation division rakes in the fees. The courts DO get the court costs from the parents.
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I know of a “child” (who is almost 18 now) who was arrested 2 years ago for PI. This child has been on probation ever since. This child has been arrested 6 times since the first arrest for the SAME OFFENSE! Was the child incarcerated at the pleading of the parents? NO. The kid was released after 4 hours at Juvy each time and probation time (and FEES) were extended. Is this really a deterrent to ANY kid?
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I know another “child” who was arrested in Hendricks County for shoplifting. She tested positive at a deferral program for THC (pot) and the judge sent her to Muncie Corrections for 7 days. She tested positive again after release while at a probation appointment and was sent BACK to Muncie for 13 days which INCLUDED Christmas. She has been straight and narrow ever since. BTW, the parents have to pay probation fees, court costs, and $150+ per day for the Muncie stays.
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Tell me that the Marion County Juvenile System is too taxed for space and I say BS!! They want probation fees. They want monitoring fees (even though no one seems to be monitoring). I remember when I was a kid in the early 80’s and we were scared to go to Juvy because our parents had the option to LEAVE US THERE. Now parents who want to teach the kids a lesson are told that if they don’t come and get their kid IMMEDIATELY the PARENT will be charged with child abandonment! What is THAT telling our kids??
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What the hell ever happened to the “Scared Straight” program????
July 30th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
To Rufnek : Hmm somebody call a detective PLEASE! Leave a Message At the BEEP: All detectives are presently working on murder cases! Please call your insurance company and call back when the kids are back in school. This has been a recording….
August 1st, 2008 at 5:41 pm
To Moneyguy: This wasn’t just stealing one car, it was a huge operation. What was not reported was the amount of cars stolen. Approximately 20 cars from each auction and a few here and there from dealerships. Do you even know how many auto auctions are here in just Marion County? And on top of that they were able to get some of those vehicles registered AND plated in their names? I understand there are murders occuring in record numbers, but don’t you think some of these vehicles were being used to commit violent crimes? If they bust these kids for that then it will lead to other offenders too. And don’t get me wrong I’m totally on the officers side, heck I’m related to an officer. I just know we had no help in trying to find our cars and had to do most of the work ourselves, which was fine with us as long as we got our cars back.
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:48 am
Whoa Abbie, ITS THE PROSECUTOR STUPID. Your getting warmer. I suggest you actually spend a day in criminal court and observe the prosecutor office in motion. The cops are making the right arrests, its the prosecutors office. Carl “Plea Deal” Brizzi is the man you need to put to the screws too. Start looking at murder suspects and agg. assault suspects CRIMINAL HISTORY. Anyone with a prior gun conviction/rape conviction/or 3 narcotics convictions should NOT be offered a plea agreement. The judges accept these plea’s because they are not a party to them.