The bike was orange and had been
a gift from a father to his son on his 10th birthday. It sat for months
in the basement of the boy’s Northeast Washington home after a tire
went flat and his mother wasn’t able to get it fixed.
The father, who lives apart from his son, was recently able to have the bike repaired and on Sunday returned it to the boy, now 12. On Monday, D.C. police said another boy pushed the middle-school student away from the Magna bicycle and stole it from near the victim’s house in the Carver-Langston neighborhood.
The suspect is 9 years old.
“My son ran after him but couldn’t catch him,” said the victim’s mother, 52, who called 911 when she heard her son crying from outside about 5:30 p.m.: “Mama, somebody stole my bike.”
Police broadcast the suspect’s description over Twitter after the robbery. They wrote there was a lookout for a “9 yoa, no shirt, blue basketball shorts, brown hair, orange bike.”
This was just one of 1,678 robberies reported in the District this year; it was the age of the alleged assailant that stuck out. Descriptions from victims can often be wrong, but not in this case, police said.
Police who answered the mother’s 911 call quickly found the young suspect, who was riding around the neighborhood on the bike. A police report says the youth was charged with robbery by force and violence and taken to authorities who handle juvenile cases. Police photographed the orange bike for evidence.
The boy’s mother — who did not want to be identified to protect the identity of her son — said the boy’s father bought the bike for $100 at Target. It broke, and the mother put it away, but said the boy’s father learned of a place that world fix it for free.
It came back from the shop Sunday.
The 12-year-old took the bike for a ride for the first time late Monday afternoon, riding no farther then the edge of an ally near his home. The chain came off and he was fixing it, he later told police, when the other boy approached and asked if he could ride the bike. The young owner told him no.
Police said in a report that the young victim “stated that [the 9-year-old] pushed him back, grabbed onto his bike and rode off traveling westbound on Lang Place NE.” The bike owner’s mother said her son, while younger than the suspect, is small for his age, standing about 4 feet 5 inches tall.
She said she has worked to keep him safe. He is allowed to walk only the four blocks to his school, and can visit a friend who lives at the other end of the block. She watches his friends closely, and made sure he cut off ties with one youth she described as trouble.
Now, she said her son doesn’t want to go outside. “I’m going to have to take him to school,” the mother said. “It’s just sad what happened. This morning when I went to work, he was like, ‘Mommy, don’t leave me today.’ ”
The father, who lives apart from his son, was recently able to have the bike repaired and on Sunday returned it to the boy, now 12. On Monday, D.C. police said another boy pushed the middle-school student away from the Magna bicycle and stole it from near the victim’s house in the Carver-Langston neighborhood.
The suspect is 9 years old.
“My son ran after him but couldn’t catch him,” said the victim’s mother, 52, who called 911 when she heard her son crying from outside about 5:30 p.m.: “Mama, somebody stole my bike.”
Police broadcast the suspect’s description over Twitter after the robbery. They wrote there was a lookout for a “9 yoa, no shirt, blue basketball shorts, brown hair, orange bike.”
This was just one of 1,678 robberies reported in the District this year; it was the age of the alleged assailant that stuck out. Descriptions from victims can often be wrong, but not in this case, police said.
Police who answered the mother’s 911 call quickly found the young suspect, who was riding around the neighborhood on the bike. A police report says the youth was charged with robbery by force and violence and taken to authorities who handle juvenile cases. Police photographed the orange bike for evidence.
The boy’s mother — who did not want to be identified to protect the identity of her son — said the boy’s father bought the bike for $100 at Target. It broke, and the mother put it away, but said the boy’s father learned of a place that world fix it for free.
It came back from the shop Sunday.
The 12-year-old took the bike for a ride for the first time late Monday afternoon, riding no farther then the edge of an ally near his home. The chain came off and he was fixing it, he later told police, when the other boy approached and asked if he could ride the bike. The young owner told him no.
Police said in a report that the young victim “stated that [the 9-year-old] pushed him back, grabbed onto his bike and rode off traveling westbound on Lang Place NE.” The bike owner’s mother said her son, while younger than the suspect, is small for his age, standing about 4 feet 5 inches tall.
She said she has worked to keep him safe. He is allowed to walk only the four blocks to his school, and can visit a friend who lives at the other end of the block. She watches his friends closely, and made sure he cut off ties with one youth she described as trouble.
Now, she said her son doesn’t want to go outside. “I’m going to have to take him to school,” the mother said. “It’s just sad what happened. This morning when I went to work, he was like, ‘Mommy, don’t leave me today.’ ”
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