great insight into the sad truths of boston....For youngest thugs, crime is child’s play

Peter Gelzinis
In the mug shot, he looks all of 9 years old and sweet as apple pie. Think of the Gerber baby gone bad. The Boston police report lists his height at 5 feet, 3 inches, his weight at 96 pounds and his years on this Earth at 14.

Just below his portrait, we come to “Charges.” From the top: Intent to rob while armed, assault and battery and assault by means of a dangerous weapon. And that weapon would either be a gun (or possibly a knife) glimpsed by a victim who was asked to surrender his phone, watch and wallet as he was leaving a McDonald’s near Egleston Square by this adorable little bandit and his two alleged partners in crime.

The intended victim broke free of his three attackers, called 911 and positively identified our 96-pound hoodlum as one of the trio who grabbed him by the neck and tried their best to rob him. The incident occurred on Oct. 1, just after 5 in the afternoon.

The next morning, after being booked, fingerprinted and photographed on a felony charge, our diminutive assailant was back at the Washington Irving Middle School. His teachers were unaware of his exploits until a week or so later, when a school brawl placed this 14-year-old on the brink of suspension and brought his mother to the Irving.

Last Thursday morning, during a meeting with school officials and the boy’s mother, witnesses described an incident where the boy ran out of the Irving middle school after having a confrontation with his mother that was loosely described as an assault.

Sources said that after the mother told her son she did not want him staying at home while he was suspended, the 14-year-old grabbed her hands, pushed them away from his face and then threatened her with, “I will (expletive) you up!” before running off in the direction of Roslindale Square. The mother’s reaction was to tell school officials to “call the police.”

This story was conveyed last week by someone who wanted to enlighten the public about the kind of behavior that lies behind the madness in Cleveland. Of course, that was before a 15-year-old gunman in Roxbury opened fire on Myron Stovell Saturday afternoon in the middle of Malcom X. Park. After accidentally striking the alleged shooter’s pit bull pup with his car, Stovell, a beloved Pop Warner football coach, was lucky to survive a volley of gunfire with only a leg wound.

Sadly, none of this raised an eyebrow of a law enforcement source who has watched the malignancy of street violence across Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan trickle down over the past two decades from seasoned criminals in their mid-20’s to high-schoolers and middle schoolers and now kids in elementary school.

“If every kid who was charged with a felony was automatically removed from school and placed in some alternative setting” - such as the Middle School Academy in Roxbury - the source said, “the alternative settings would be overrun. So in many cases it’s up to the discretion of the school headmasters whether they keep a kid in school or ship them out.”

Few principals and even fewer dedicated teachers are inclined to give up on a child. But that begs a tough question: At what point does having faith in a kid threaten the safety of other people?

“A 15-year-old hard guy is pissed off because his pit bull was bumped by a car,” said the law enforcement source.

“So what does he do? He gets a gun and starts shooting in broad daylight and doesn’t give it a thought. After all, who’s going to stop him? Not the mother who has lost all control and is too afraid herself to ever think of challenging her son, who may only be 96 pounds soaking wet, but knows how to shoot a gun.”