Washington appeals court: cops can take cars from parents of lawbreaking adult kids

[Woodmonkey]

This is from a thread I posted in Automotive Forum.

Washington appeals court says cops can take cars from parents of lawbreaking adult children.


Carry on my wayward son, but without my car please. Especially after the Washington state Court of Appeals ruled that the parents of a 24-year-old drug dealer was a vehicular menace to society. The cops took a 2004 Nissan Sentra and ooooh, a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle. Wonder if it had the big block. Fellas, it's still impounded and might be up for action. Anyway, the Seattle Times has the whole story. It's worth linking to just to vicariously experience how a devious son can get away with living at home and deal drugs. Were the parents really that clueless? You decide. The court did.

The trouble for Alan and Stephne Roos -- a butcher and a dental assistant -- started in June 2005, a review of police reports and court filings in the parents' case shows.

Thomas Roos was found passed out in a carwash parking lot in Lynnwood in the Nissan with $21,406 in cash, methamphetamine, prescription painkillers and a ledger of drug sales. The car was impounded and Roos was arrested, but he intercepted a notice mailed to his parents, as well as a voice-mail message left at their house. The car was later released.

Roos, who has a 1998 juvenile conviction for drug dealing, was unemployed, living at home, and leading a "secret life" that included deleting voice-mail messages from his parents' phone over the past two years, his mother testified.

A month later, he was arrested while driving a friend's car, and officers again found drugs, cash and the ledger. His mother bailed him out and, after learning about the previous arrest, told him not to drive the Nissan. His father later testified he was "mad as hell" at his son, and bought steering-wheel locks for both cars.

Nonetheless, Roos was arrested twice more over the next two months, passed out at the wheel and carrying large quantities of drugs, once in the Nissan, once in the Chevelle.

The Source

[Jeff High]

If the car was impounded the first time, how did the parents not know of the first arrest when it happened. I understand the legal owner of the vehicle is the only one the impound will release the car to. This guy should never have been released in the fist place, we're not talking about a little bag of weed.

If I had gone in to bail out my son thinking it was his first, and found out later about the first. I would have revoked my bail and let him go back to jail. At a minimum he would not be living in my house and would never have access to my cars again. They would be reported stolen if missing and would somehow be marked so I could tell if they had been used.

I had this talk with my son when he was busted at age 17 for selling a couple of perscription pain pills to a friend at school. he had taken them from our medicine cabinet. He was informed that if it ever happend again or I found any kind of drugs in my house he would have to leave and would never again be allowed to use any family asset. So far no problems, He is 19 with a steady job, a steady girlfriend, and is doing well.

Tough love works.

[BrianK]

The question asked. Were the parents really that clueless?

An unemployed 24 yr. old living at home with two cars and obviously with enough money to operate two cars falls into the catagory of the parents being enablers and not clueless. Seems more like they didn't want to see what is pretty da*n obvious. To many parents in society now have adopted the military outlook of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" only rather than about homosexuality it's about what their children are doing. If they don't ask they can deny responsibility for any wrong doing. If they know of wrong doing they don't tell. The consequences for telling might portray them as bad parents.