Children, 6 and 12, accused of armed robbery

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A 12-year-old boy and his 6-year-old brother robbed a woman of her phone and threatened her with what turned out to be a BB gun when she tried to get it back, according to WSOC-TV and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

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Authorities began investigating after a woman said she was approached by the children as she was walking in a parking lot on the 2100 block of Diamond Creek Circle. Capt. Jason Helton said the woman had just finished working a nightshift and thought she was helping when the 6-year-old asked if he could borrow her phone to call their mom. A police report obtained by WSOC identified it as a Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

“She did like the rest of us would do. She let them have her phone,” Helton said Monday at a news conference. “Well, when she did that, they took off running with the phone.”

The police captain said the woman followed the kids to try to get her phone back.

“When she did, a 12-year-old juvenile pointed a gun in her face and tried to pistol whip her,” he said.

The pair ran to a nearby apartment complex. Officers responding to the area identified the probable suspects based on earlier interactions with the family and contacted the suspects’ mother, Helton said.

“She was very cooperative,” the police captain said, adding that authorities were able to get the kids to come out of the apartment complex.

The 6-year-old gave police information that allowed them to recover the gun pointed at the woman, which turned out to be a BB gun. However, Helton said, “If you look at it really, really closely — does that look like a BB gun to anybody?” He added that the situation could have been “really, really tragic” if the victim had been armed.

The 12-year-old boy has been charged with armed robbery and damage to property, Helton said. The 6-year-old has not been charged, as a child must be at least 9 years old to face charges in North Carolina.

Helton said that he believes the 6-year-old is “a victim of his circumstances and environment.”

“We can’t charge a 6-year-old in the state of North Carolina. They have to be 9 because there’s no way we could prove an intent,” he said. “Their brains are just so naïve. … So, it’s just tragic.”

He urged parents to pay attention to who their children hang out with and what they do online, noting that one of the children had posed with a gun on social media a few days before the incident.

“Officers are dealing with juveniles every single day (for) property crimes, violent crimes,” Helton said. “And when I say juveniles, I mean kids — I mean ages 11, 12, 13, 14 years old — and it seems like they just keep getting younger and younger.”