US mum calls 911 over Grand Theft Auto

A Boston mum whose 14-year-old son refused to stop playing Grand Theft Auto in the early hours called in the cops to put a stop to his late-night gaming. The 911 call came at 2:30 am on Saturday morning, when the desperate parent explained that not only had her offspring resisted a maternal cease-and-desist order, but he also …

[Ben Rosenthal]

nah this is different

most moody 14 year olds could actually do with a damn good tasering :D

Yes, that does include the 14 year old me :D

[Z 1]

Dejavu much?

I could have sworn this article has already been posted.

Paris, because I feel a little dizzy...

[chr0m4t1c]

Failure of police proceedure?

Aren't they supposed to Taser the young scamp?

No wonder they're losing the public's respect.

Oh wait, have I got that the wrong way around?

[Paul Talbot]

Pathetic

Erm, he "walked around the house and turned on all the lights"? Wouldn't that mean that he had by definition stopped playing the game?

Pathetic parenting. A shame to see tech media mention this sort of tripe as if the game was actually involved. She'd probably have been an equally useless parent if he was just listing to music or watching TV.

[Nate Phillips]

Daffy Bastards

There are no words.

Parenting Fail.

[fatchap]

Did they call Social Services?

The mother was allowing her child to access Adult material. Get him off to a foster home for Christmas that will teach them both.

[Jimbo 6]

If I were her...

...I'd have just told the 911 phone operator that he had beaten somebody half to death, stolen their car, and evaded police capture by driving through a shopping mall. *Then* they'd have got Arkansas on his ass before he had time to hit 'save'.

[Cerviperus]

Seriously?

I hope this woman gets fined for wasting the time and resources of the 911 dispatcher and the officers that responded. What a joke.

[Gary 23]

For gods sake

Cut the fucking plug off the games console.

See if he's able to play it then

[Anonymous Coward]

weird...

...most negligent mums don't care when their kid goes to bed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Taser 'im!

Taser the little sod! Jeez! I would simply walk over to the wall, pull the plug out and cut the bloody thing off! Exactly what my old man did to my BBC Micro back in the day, took me a week of chores to earn that plug back!

Kids today, literally getting away with murder!

[Tim Schomer]

Ah, the BBC micro

I had a tear of nostalgia when I read that, not that we played too exsessively (never had the time, between mowing the lawn and other chores) but I do remember a metal box that we filled with ice to stop th e GPU from overheating on extended 'Elite' sessions (OK, GPU is a bit of a strong term for it, it was just the standard chip, but it had a heatsink that got seriously hot when playing Elite so we had to cool it down a bit...)

Those days we had real friends that we could and did speak to on a face to face basis (OK, there wasn't much choice then) but it didn't do us any harm, and i'm sure we're more socially complete as a result of it.

Can we have an icon for dewey eyed nostalia of the old times??

[Anonymous Coward]

Elite and getting hot

The BBC used the 8 bit 6502 processor, if I recall correctly it was the A variant, which ran a clock speed of 2MHz, excuting at most, 1million instructions per second (average being lower than that).

The package of the chip was a 40pin plastic DIL package. Not usually a device that is heat sinked.

And, there wouldn't have been much variation in power dissipation regardless of what the processor was executing. The processor was so simple and predated the ideas of active power management, turning bits of the chip off to conserve energy.

If there was an issue of overheating, then there would have been thousands of chips blowing and a big market in spares, and there wasn't.

[heyrick]

It wasn't the processor

The problem of overheating in the Beeb was due to the video ULA in early versions. I have heard it said that the ULA designers (Ferranti?) designed the chip for around 50% of the gates to be used and the rest to be 'lost'. Acorn did some deep thinking and designed a ULA that did an awful lot and used around 90% of the gates. This meant that it ran hot, needed a heatsink, and if that heatsink fell off...

Later boards (like the infamous issue 7) used better versions of the video ULA.

[Anonymous Coward]

Discipline

Dispatch this wretched rapscallion forthwith up the nearest and tardiest chimney and let the glorious and majestic salvation of THE WORKPLACE both earn him his keep and steady his moral compass.

Further strengthen his character and sense of self respect by meting out a DAMN GOOD THRASHING throughout all twelve days of the Christmas and in consequence bestow upon him the resplendent coronet of dignity and heroic sceptre of pride.

That is all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy solution...

A 2 x 4 up along side juniors head will stop him from playing GTA any time soon as he'll be in the intensive care unit for weeks.

[MrT]

Arrest the mum...

...for two counts:

1) wasting police time FFS

2) supply of/being a party to the use of an 18+ video game by a minor

Mind you, not sure about the first, given that some po-leese think it's okay to pull guns on snowballers. Maybe GTA is good practice for round two of the fight...

[PaulK]

If this was in the UK...

...the mother only had to refuse to get the electric card credited at the corner (pawn) shop. Ah but then she would not have been able to watch Corrie/ Emmerdale/ East Benders/ Xfactor or whatever shite the brainless watch these days. What's wrong with a smack round the head anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Use of resources

I notice how the Boston Police dept spokesman doesn't seem to have a problem with the call and the police officer getting involved in what should be a personal issue.

But then this is the department that tazers students with electronic jewelry and needs the bomb squad to take down LED displays....

[Robert E A Harvey]

My guess

I reckon they'd been hoping to gat a peek at this kid for drugs, porn, or hacking and this was the perfect opportunity.

Or they were bored witless

Speaking of witless...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's how to make emergency calls

http://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/units_and_departments/communications/999_calls/

Gawd bless Blighty!

[Big-nosed Pengie]

Only in America.

Mind you, they should have tasered the parents and recorded it for youtube distribution.

[Eddy Ito]

Not many choices

She probably did the best thing possible given the sad nanny state of affairs. Just try disciplining a kid these days and see how long it takes to get through the "child abuse" investigation, court proceedings, and god knows what. Regardless of the outcome, try getting a job afterward because once the jury of public opinion weighs in, you're screwed. Remember the court doesn't find someone "innocent" in the U.S. only that there is reasonable doubt of one's guilt.

The fail goes to a system that leaves parents few if any alternatives, not the parent.

[Paul 4]

No no no no

Just no. Either stop reading the Mail, or elReg. The two don't mix.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes, yes

Actually, for those of us in The Colonies, this is increasingly the case. The system to "save all the children" is saving them from any form of discipline, morality, and any general sense of being ANY member of society other than another wanna be "G-Thug", baby.

Disciplining in a "non violent" way - where the parent grounded the child from privileges (like video games, TV, etc) - brings about allegations from CPS of "severe" abuse of children, being "victims of emotional abuse, which includes criticizing, rejecting, or refusing to nurture a child."

... all "For the Children(tm)"... and the cash that goes with an untouchable gestapo.

[Shakje]

NO NO NO

"Disciplining in a "non violent" way - where the parent grounded the child from privileges (like video games, TV, etc) - brings about allegations from CPS of "severe" abuse of children, being "victims of emotional abuse, which includes criticizing, rejecting, or refusing to nurture a child.""

Prove it.

Basically what you're saying is, she should have smacked him around a bit. KNOCKED SOME SENSE INTO THE LITTLE RAT. Yay you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Punish them all!

Bad parents breed bad children who in turn ruin society.

Jail bad parents, put children in care!

Oh and Tazer both for wasting police time!

[Jesse Dorland]

Whatever happen to spanking?

It will please geen by keeping cops at desk, and they will have more time eating donuts.

[Winkypop]

Grand Theft Brain

1. Parental fail

2. Teenager fail

3. Policing fail

What's next?

Help!

911?

My little Johnny won't wash behind his ears!!

Send in the SWAT team !!!!

[Tony Paulazzo]

Please

stop the world, I seriously want to get off.

[heyrick]

EPIC parenting fail

Seriously... she'd better get used to calling the cops on her brat as it is just going to get worse as he gets older. Should we send over Jeremy Kyle?

If this was my offspring (in some alternate reality where I let it get that bad), I'm afraid I'd just walk over and hit the breakers. No lights. No game. No coffee. Go the **** to bed. End of.

[DI_Wyman]

Have..

the good parents of Boston forgotten how to give a stroppy kid a good slapping?

[Andraž 'ruskie' Levstik]

This reminds me

Of when my mom took the computer cable so I couldn't play any games. Simple solution. Of course finding it afterwards was half the fun :)

And finding a few spares as well :)

But yeah. Friend of mine had his breakers cut if he overdid it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Knocking one on their arse is effective communication

When reason and good judgment fail to react the inner depths of an empty head, knocking one on their arse a few times tends to remove the cob webs from the deep, dark, empty hole between their ears.

[HFoster]

Dry slap

I still advocate judicious use of an open palm to the face and/or behind.

[Subtilior]

Justice

Flog everyone involved, then burn down the house - it's the only way to be sure.

[Misoriented]

Waste more police time!

I, for one, am glad to hear that police resources are being wasted by trailer trash and their spawn. It makes the rest of us much safer. Who's up for a snowball fight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Call an electrician instead

And have a separate circuit put in for the child's bedroom. If you can't be trusted, no electricity past midnight.

[Goat Jam]

Not surprising . . .

"especially in today's day and age when these kids play video games and computer games"

Let mer rephrase that so that it is accurate . . .

"especially in today's day and age when too many male kids grow up in fatherless, single mother households and have zero worthwhile role models to provide a healthy balance of self esteem and discipline."

[Mortvent]

blame the laws

the child protection laws give the kid the power to have mom arrested if she spanks or disciplines them... so who do you turn to, the same police that would lock her up for parenting.

[Anonymous Coward]

@EPIC parenting fail... and all those blaming the parents

I would also say the parents are largely at fault here. But there's not much they can really do - the law does not allow:

1) Striking or engaging in Corporal Punishment (ie giving him the thrashing he deserves).

2) Threatening or otherwise removing privileges he/she currently enjoys

3) Curtailing or reducing his current "freedoms" - eg going out with his homies.

4) and more actually

because then you get arrested, put in jail and otherwise treated like dirt. For being a Parent. And they wonder why there is such a problem with young thugs? Kinda funny really, like in the UK where you idiots think giving a kid an ASBO is any kind of deterrent. Deterrent? Hell, they wear those ASBO's like badges of honor. Hah.

THAT is why you call 911 and make them fix this type of crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

<untitled>

Maybe if the law really does step in if you take away privileges (and I'm unconvinced) then with any luck the law'll take him away to a home where he might learn a few useful life lessons, and give the parents a break at the same time.

[Joseph Kang]

911 to the rescue again!

Can't be any worse than calling 911 because a McDonald's manager refused to give you your Chicken McNuggets: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504125,00.html