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Can You Be Charged With a Crime for Helping an Abused Teenager Run Away

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  • 06-04-2016, 10:51 AM
    Jaci
    Can You Be Charged With a Crime for Helping an Abused Teenager Run Away
    My question involves child abuse or neglect in the State of: California

    This problem may not seem severe to some people, but my friend takes it hard and is a very emotional person.
    (FRIEND ONE)
    Hello, I am here for a few questions, and i do not know if this is in the right category or not.. Anyways all my friends and I are 15. Recently one of them has been going through a few family problems. Her mother slaps her sometimes(for no apparent reason), and is dating a drunk who currently lives with them. This drunk gets the "angry" type of drunk and searches everywhere for a fight(usually verbal). If he gets angry enough, he will start getting physical. He has even told my friend that she deserves to be raped. Her mother also took away my friend's source of alarm, her phone. The alarms on an alarm clock don't work, she tells me she gets used to the sound. So, since nobody gets up / refuses to get up in the morning, she is pretty much always late to school and isn't passing many of her classes due to this. In my school we have something called a citizen ship grade, every time you are late you loose 5 points. If you don't pass this class then I don't know what happens, I think you get held back.
    Her mother also threatened my friend's boyfriend about getting my friend's grandfather to some over with a shotgun. Specifics of what he would do were not said. Her boyfriend was also placed with a restraining order for trying to help my friend's mother calm down, and that she was only hurting my friend with what she was doing. She even doesn't let friend 1 go outside and do things! Friend 2 and I have asked plenty of times for birthday parties, or just a normal hangout and her mother tells us no! Every single time. Friend 1 almost never leaves her house accept for school.

    Second part:
    (WITH FRIEND 2)
    Yesterday my friend decided to run away. We were trying to stop her but she really wanted to go away. My other friend 2's mother had let her stay at her house so she wouldn't run away too far. Meaning, run away to the nearby river or mountains and we'd never see her again type of thing. Then last night they got a hold of friend 1's mother, who then called the cops. The cops tried to force friend 1 back to her mothers house. But she was severely petrified of going back there. She wouldn't move and refused to talk. They also said friend 1 was a habitual runaway, this was the first time she has ever ran away. We are thinking her mother said that. We know her mother often lies about things.
    http://image.prntscr.com/image/3f130...e0aa19aea9.png

    Are the cops allowed to force her to go home, even with her this scared to go? And the things her mother has done?
  • 06-04-2016, 11:15 AM
    Dogmatique
    Re: 15 Year Old Runaway from Abuse
    They really don't have a choice unless she is in imminent danger.

    There are mandated reporters at the child's school. That means that if they suspect abuse is happening, they must call CPS. Have they not seen fit to call CPS? Even with the "habitual lateness" they haven't stepped in?

    Let me tell you what I think is happening.

    I think this is a troubled girl who needs some help outside of the school system. I think this is a troubled girl whose parents are not exactly stellar parenting material but they also wouldn't meet the definition of "unfit".

    And I think this is a troubled girl who may be a little prone to drama, and who may end up getting her friends and her friends' parents into trouble for what eventually may become harboring a runaway.

    If she is actually being abused then she must speak to a school counselor or call CPS herself.
  • 06-04-2016, 04:33 PM
    cdwjava
    Re: 15 Year Old Runaway from Abuse
    And, to answer the question in the title of this thread, yes, you CAN be charged with one or more crimes if you assist a child in running away or remaining out of the control of their parent(s).
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