What should I do?
We live in a small NEw England town. The police decided when my son was still very young, that he was going to be a trouble maker. When he was 13, they accused him of two crimes, one vandalism and the other theft. He did not have anything to do with either. That did not stop one of the officers from calling me to tell me I am a bad mother and needed to stop making excuses for my son who the police would be watching. WE basically had to prove that he was innocent (I though it worked the other way in the USA), but they did leave us alone.

Then my son drank some rum when he was 15 1/2. While this is illegal, it is certainly not unusual among the kids in town. Last year (he was 16 1/2) they accused him or furnishing alcohol to a minor. He was not drinking, but a friend of his was drunk. We had to get a lawyer and go to court where the whole thing was resolved easily.

The latest accusation is that my son spray painted a building with some other kids. Two of the kids have admitted to having done this and said that my son was not there, but the police banged on our door wanted him to come down and "tell the truth". That meant admit he had done the crime. As he didn't, we called our lawyer instead.

Thank God we can afford a lawyer, but I'm getting very sick of this.
Does any one have a similar experience? Any idea what we can do as my son will be living here for another year until he graduates from HS and goes to college. There is very little crime in our small town, but anytime anything goes wrong, my son is rounded up.

Have you tried sueing the police assuming your son doesn't or hasn't done anything illegal for constantly harassing you

I haven't gone through this myself but you may want to have a sit down with your lawyer. If what you are saying is true, he is in the best position to help you with this. He seems to have done a good job for you so far, hasn't he? If so, talk to him about your concerns. I would suggest discussing with him the possibility of filing a lawsuit against the PD in your town, something along a cease and desist order or a harassment lawsuit. You need to scare the bejeezus out of them and force them to give their accusations a second thought before jumping in with both feet. If there is the possibility of even a whiff of a lawsuit, they will get called to the carpet by the town lawyer and selectmen. Your town does not want to have to deal with the possibility of having to pay out a large sum of money because of these officers unfounded accusations.


P.S. Sorry albear, just saw your post after writing and posting mine. We are on the same wavelength. :)

I agree, you need to discuss with your attorney a harassment suit against the town police. You have 3 documented instances where unfounded charges were filed. You shouldn't have a problem with getting a restraining order against. You may have to file in a court outside the town though.

Sorry for posting again but this is the only way to see replies after mine

Hello ange:

Instead of hiring lawyers all the time, it would be cheaper to send him away to school. If he's innocent of everything, then he needs to be away from the cops. If he's not, he still needs to be away from the cops, but he should be in a school that can address his situation.

I don't know who he's fooling - you or the cops. (I can't believe I'm supporting the cops here - I hate cops.)

excon

I'm not going to speculate about what he did or didn't do. But I will say that your son seems to find himself in poor company a lot. You are known by the company you keep... maybe its time for you to put your foot down and have more control over who he's hanging out with unsupervised.

Even if he wasn't responsible for the vandalism or providing the alcohol (which you need to consider objectively), he is definitely hanging with a bad crowd... it will only get worse without intervention.

Maybe as a LAST RESORT you could consider moving

I will go with excon on this one, and I am sorry, but as a police officer and a Juv court advocate for many years, I have seen mother after mother who swear their child did nothing but in the end the evidence normally proved it, ( maybe not the evidence we could use in court, so often they may get off in court, but we knew they were part of it.)

If not, your son is making a lot of bad choices in who he hangs around with,

But once he is believed to be a normal suspect that will not change, and there is little you can do about it,

Whether her son is hanging around with the wrong crowd or not, whether she is seeing things "clearly", is hard for us to say. I do know that a lot of people in small NE towns cannot afford to send their kids away or to move out of their town. Personally, I believe the lawyer knows enough about the situation to advise her as to what the best course of action is. If there is enough evidence to start litigation, he will tell her that. If he believes that she is not seeing things clearly, hopefully he will make a constructive recommendation that will be suitable to the situation. ;)