It is not clear what Justin Thompson, 29, has struggled with more: guilt or gravity. When police came to his girlfriend’s house on a warrant for assault and harassment, Thompson hid in the ceiling . . . only to fall in front of the officer in his kitchen. What was notable (beyond the means of apprehension) was one of the crimes charged against Thompson.
In addition to the original assault and harassment charges, police added resisting arrest and, here is the interesting one, endangering the welfare of children. The police argue that, because Thompson fell a few feet from the children, he was guilty of children endangerment. However, he did not think that he was going to fall through the ceiling. Indeed, he assumed he could safely hide there.
ANOTHER GENIUS IN SOCIETY!
DUH!
He needs to enroll in a construction where he can learn about things like strength of materials and what actually holds up the ceiling. Not sure he would be able to pass the course, but a good try wouldn’t hurt.
Forget the part about falling through the ceiling and claiming that it endangered the kids by doing so. He endangered the kids before he ever fell through the ceiling. He endangered the minor children by simply hiding out, from the police, in an enclosure where children were present and could have been harmed or killed during his capture. He wasn’t hiding out in some open field. He was hiding in a home. Remember, the authorities were at the home pursuit to a warrant or warrants pertaining to assault and harassment. . .charges associated with violence. The doofus was hiding out, from the authorities, in an enclosed structure–where there were minor kids milling about. The warrants were associated with charges pertaining to violent acts–a fact not lost on those law enforcement officials who were charged with his arrest and capture. It is reasonable to believe that hiding out, from the police, in the vicinity of these kids, did, in fact, serve to endanger them because a struggle, to arrest the individual, could have easily ensued in just such a case, where the kids could have been harmed in the scuffle.
Pursuant, not pursuit.
Actually, right before he fell he yelled hold my beer and watch this!!
When I was a kid growing up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the kids generally were forced to do “headers” when playing soccer in gym class. With what we know now (and suspected then), that was far more endangering. I remember being shouted at for not doing it. I think that only twice did I actually do it, since at the very core of my being I knew that it was dangerous. It took a large amount of yelling at me, and some peer pressure, before I would actually do it. None of the perpetrating endangering gym teachers were ever charged with child endangerment for their role in risking injury to our brains, and yet it was much more of an obvious danger to kids than is hiding in the ceiling. This is just another case of the police slapping a charge on an easy target while letting the more difficult targets off the hook. When was the last time the police in Scranton PA ever charged a gym teacher with endangerment for forcing a kid to do a “header?”
Wow. Hope you are never allowed to go out in public.
That is far more “endangering” that a soccer ball.
He was clutching a copy of “What Happened” in on hand and had a “Yes We Can” tattoo on his hind end from what I understand.
Stay out of attics without floors.
I don’t see the child endangerment being successful, but the gf is at risk. I really hate these ticky-tacky add-on charges just to make the officers look like they are doing their job. They probably would not have checked the attic, so they are lucky he fell through the ceiling.
This reminds me of when I was a kid and a group of us from the Scout troop were having a sleep-over at a friend’s house. We were “camping” in the attic in sleeping bags and of course, talking and giggling when we were supposed to be asleep. The friend’s father yelled up at us a few times to quiet down and go to sleep, but after a few more giggles he charged up the stairs to let us have it. He was a big guy, and crashed through the unreinforced attic floor, landing in the living room in nothing but his boxers. He wasn’t hurt, but he was so furious that I ran home in my pajamas at midnight and crawled into my bunk, back in the days when people didn’t lock their doors. And no, he wasn’t charged with endangering us kids, all he did was give us a great laugh!
Tin,…
Was your friend that you bailed on😉 to face the wrath of his father alone ever seen or heard from again?
You always file all the charges that have some connection so the court and the lawyers have some throwaways ….Seems to make them happy. Concentrate on the evidence and testimony for the main charge and let them or the jury dump the throwaways however if the indivdidual acts up the jury can throw the whole book at him or her and so can the judge
That backfired one time when tried by a rookie Ass’t DA who overloaded the whole thing and ended up after assuming her ducks were in a row. They weren’t and 53 counts netted one guilty and 52 not guilty. The Judgte didn’t help matters either refusing to explaining the law to the jury.
Anyway that’s the reason for throwaway charges.
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Sometimes you think people almost want to be arrested given their stupidity.
I believe the child endangerment charge cannot be successfully prosecuted. The fact that someone is in an attic alone is not unordinary enough to be held to be negligent in prudence. A person making a repair within the attic could have fallen just the same.
Agree.