Boy, 10, charged after driving stolen car near crowded Minneapolis playground

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    MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Minneapolis police arrested a 10-year-old boy for allegedly driving a stolen vehicle near a school playground last month — and it’s not the boy’s first brush with the law, police said.

The Sept. 20 incident was caught on video. The Minneapolis Police Department said it happened at Nellie Stone Johnson School in north Minneapolis when the playground was “crowded.”

“Fortunately, no children on the playground were struck by the driver,” the department said.

Police booked the 10-year-old into the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center Thursday. According to the department, this is at least his third arrest and he is a suspect in a dozen cases ranging from “auto theft to robbery to assault with a dangerous weapon.”

“It is unfathomable that a 10-year-old boy has been involved in this level of criminal activity without effective intervention,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said. “Prison is not an acceptable option for a 10-year-old boy. But the adults who can stop this behavior going forward must act now to help this child and his family.”

Police said the boy’s family members are cooperating and “have asked for help to keep their son or anyone else from being injured or killed.”

On Friday, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced criminal charges have been filed against the boy, but couldn’t comment further due to his age. O’Hara said charges were also approved against the boy in an August attempted carjacking.

The office says if a court-appointed psychologist deems any offender, including a child, incompetent to stand trial, and a judge agrees with the recommendation, the case “must be dismissed or suspended, and the child must be released from custody.”

“We are facing an urgent crisis in our community related to a small group of children who are not competent to stand trial in the juvenile justice system, but who cannot safely be at home,” an attorney’s office spokesperson said in a statement.

The office says it “cannot charge or prosecute our way out of this crisis,” and adds it’s working with law enforcement, county and state partners in the hope of creating “out-of-home placements” for young offenders with “complex needs.”

“What we need is clear: residential placements with varying levels of security in our community that are resourced and staffed to be able to accept and successfully treat our youth with complex needs,” the spokesperson wrote. “And we need urgent and immediate action to address this issue now.”

O’Hara echoed the need for residential placement for young offenders at a Friday afternoon press conference.

“We’ve noticed this year the age of juvenile offenders who are very active has gotten younger,” O’Hara said. “The system doesn’t have an answer for what to do with someone this young.”

In 2019, two metro facilities for juvenile offenders were closed after being in operation for more than 100 years: Minnetonka’s Hennepin County Home School and St. Paul’s Totem Town.

The closings came after leaders in Hennepin and Ramsey counties decided to move away from the practice of confining child offenders in favor of a new data-driven system emphasizing the use of alternative methods like intensive treatment homes and community- and cultural-specific programs.

Data show since the closures, crimes committed by youths like arson, auto thefts and robberies have increased in the metro between 2019 and 2021.

Critics, like Ramsey County Undersheriff Mike Martin, say the shift away from confinement has backfired.

“We’re failing these kids,” Martin told WCCO in 2022. “The criminal justice system no longer holds them accountable or provides meaningful intervention to them.”

“It is literally a matter of life and death when we’re talking about what’s going on with these young kids,” O’Hara said Friday.

MCF-Moorhead and MCF-Red Wing are two Minnesota juvenile facilities that take in the state’s most violent young offenders. But the rest are mostly sent home after being arrested.

Lisa Clemons, founder and chief executive officer of Minneapolis-based A Mother’s Love Initiative, told WCCO in 2022 that young offenders are emboldened by the lack of consequences.

“They know it’s a revolving door downtown,” Clemons said. “They take full advantage of being juveniles, and we have allowed the lawlessness long enough that they have absolutely no fear.”

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