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Mother calls police after son opens presents early
Last updated at 17:07pm on 06.12.06
It's December and Christmas is sometimes too difficult to wait for
An American mother had her 12-year-old son arrested for opening his Christmas present early.
Brandi Ervin called the police after discovering that the youngster had repeatedly disobeyed her by taking a Nintendo Game Boy from its hiding place at his great-grandmother's house and played with it.
Officers in Columbia, South Carolina, handcuffed the boy and took him to the police station on petty larceny charges.
Mrs Ervin, who picked her son up after church, said she had done it to teach him a lesson.
"He's been going through life doing things... and getting away with it," she explained.
She added that the boy had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in the last year, but that his medicine did not seem to be helping.
He has been suspended from school since allegedly trying to hit a police officer there last month, and faces an expulsion hearing.
Local juvenile justice officials will decide what happens to him.
Mrs Ervin said she hoped he could attend a programme that would stop him misbehaving.
"It's not even about the Christmas present," she said.
"I only want positive things out of it... There's no need for him to act this way.
"I'd rather call (the police) myself than someone else call for him doing something worse than this."
