Man Accused Of Hitting Kid With Bat After Being Ding-Dong-Ditched

I’m not saying I agree with the guy, but here in Texas with the new laws, the kid could have been shot dead and the laws here would protect him. Parents need to let there kids know times have a changed!

Being scared and being hit in the chest with a baseball bat are two way different things! Kids were being shitstains (and dumb!) but their still KIDS. A cold blast from the hose would have been funnier;)

I really hate when people post that it’s “just a kid” and that this behavior is somehow to be expected. That’s total BS. The kid had it coming, just as anyone who did this same thing would have it coming, regardless of age. I hope it hurt.

NEW PORT RICHEY – Ding-dong!
Three shadowy youths rang Calvin Kemp’s doorbell. They ran into the dark.
Ding-dong!
A second time, they ran. Calvin Kemp, 54, hid outside.
When they approached for a third time late Saturday night, authorities said, Kemp emerged from the bushes beside his home, running. He carried a baseball bat.
[...]
Kemp ordered the boy, 5-foot-3 and 110 pounds, to sit on the porch of his two-story home, in the WatersEdge gated subdivision’s Manistique Way, the report said. Kemp tied the boy’s legs together so he couldn’t escape.
[...]
When deputies arrived later, Kemp told them he tied the boy up but said the hit was accidental. He said he didn’t know the boy was 12. Deputies said the boy had bruises and a big red mark on his chest.
Kemp, never arrested, was charged with aggravated child abuse and false imprisonment of a child under 13. Authorities did not release the boy’s name.
Kemp, a real estate agent, said the incident last weekend marked only his family’s most recent harassment.
Kids – he never knew who, or how old – had for two years rang his home’s doorbell, banged on the garage door, busted his mailbox and peeped through windows, he said. Sometimes they would open the valve of the propane tank on his barbecue grill.
The worst, Kemp said, happened two years ago. Someone opened the gas tank of Kemp’s black-and-red 2008 Ford F-150, stuffed in a neon green strip torn from a shirt sleeve and set the cloth ablaze, according to a Pasco crime report. The fire burnt out before exploding. The arsonists got away.
“In my view, ringing doorbells, okay, it’s mischievous kids,” Kemp told the Times on Monday. “But when you open up a gas tank and put a rag down the spout and light it on fire … that elevates this thing to a huge degree. We’re talking about a bomb.”

The scoundrels always ran off “under the cover of darkness,” he said. Saturday’s game of ding-dong-ditch was different. After the first ring he called his subdivision’s security guards. On the second time, his family caught the kids in the act.
“My wife saw the silhouette of a stranger and freaked out,” he said. “We’ve been traumatized. You know, that expression – prisoners in our own home.”
Kemp had had enough. He ran outside, clutching the bat.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/pasco-man-accused-of-whacking-12-year-old-prankster-with-bat/1143318

I agree with you Athena. This is not a reason to beat the kid over. I used to DDD a lot as a kid. Mind you, I was under 10. A friend of mine and I would do it at these apartment complexes that had short hallways (maybe 10 apartments on each side). She would take one side, I would take the other, and we would run down the hallway banging on all the doors and hightailing it. Loads of fun. We found other things to amuse ourselves as teens though. More “mature” mischief.

Any who, I digress. Now as an adult, I have had it done to me. Whatever. It’s a little unnerving when it’s at night and you live in a rough city, but then you just don’t open your door and keep your phone in hand with 911 pre-dialed if necessary. Kids are kids and most are inherently stupid and annoying, especially as teens. There are way worse things than DDD that they could be doing.

The fault here clearly lies with the kids. It is evident from their actions that they have NO respect for others and believe that they are not accountable for their behavior, regardless of its insolence or stupidity. Here, in Baltimore we had a case a few years ago where an older man was harassed repeatedly by neighborhood kids who threw stones at his home and car. Repeated calls to the police went unanswered. In utter frustration, the old man shot and killed one of his tormentors.
The point here is that this seemingly “innocent” prank indicates a breakdown in society and basic morals. The parents of these kids need to be aware of their children’s behavior and CORRECT IT.
Kids begin with this sort of stupidity which grows exponentially until we have a major or fatal consequence of their idiocy.
IT ALL BEGINS AT HOME!

I hardly see how kids being assholes is a sign of a “breakdown in society.” When we were kids we did the exact same thing but we called it R & R — for Ring and Run — usually picking on the anti-social neighbor who got the maddest the easiest. It had nothing to do with a breakdown in society, it had everything to do with boredom, being unsupervised and not yet having discovered drugs and pussy. The latter two bringing on an entirely new set of troubles, but usually did not involve harassing a neighbor.

I still remember a stupid game we used to play with a tennis ball at night, consisting of arching the tennis ball into the air to try and have it land on a passing car’s roof. Fun times.

Meh, we really do learn something new everyday. I’ve never heard of it as “Ring and Run”. We used to call it “Knock Knock Ginger”.