Monday, March 10, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
JUST WHAT IS Jeremy Anderson, the 9-year-old concrete vandal, supposed to be learning from his mother's shameless national media attack against Metro Police and Juvenile Hall?
Is it that felony vandalism is justifiable if it gets you on "Geraldo"?
Is it that a nice smile and a well-rehearsed line of bull can get you out of just about anything?
Is it that blaming everybody else is right and taking responsibility for your actions is wrong?
Is it that excuses are better than apologies?
Whatever it is, it's not the lesson kids should be learning about vandalism.
The implausible story goes something like this:
* Boy vandalizes an entire block, 350 feet, of freshly poured concrete by scrawling names into every panel, costing the contractor close to $10,000.
* Contractor tries to contact boy's mother, but mother refuses to discuss the matter.
* Contractor calls police, who interview boy in early December. Mother doesn't call police or school to inquire.
* On the same day, officer leaves a notice on mother's door to call regarding the criminal investigation of her son. Three days go by before mother calls -- only to leave a voice message promising to call back. She never does.
* Finally, on Jan. 28, officers arrive at McMillan Elementary School to arrest boy. Officials try to contact mother but discover the mother has not informed school of her new work number. After leaving repeated messages at her home, boy is arrested and taken to Juvenile Hall.
* Mother finally contacts police.
* After a month of alleged wrangling with police to get a report on the incident, mother launches media blitz castigating Metro's handling of the incident, eventually appearing on nationwide television and giving interviews to numerous newspapers and radio stations. During said blitz, mother makes statements at odds with Metro, Juvenile Hall and school district officials.
* Contractor asks prosecutors to drop charges against boy after receiving threats and having a rock thrown through his window.
The part of this story that really sticks in my craw, though, is while neither mother nor son denies the act, neither has apologized.
A spokesman for contractor Richard Plaster said Friday that neither he nor Plaster had heard from the Andersons.
Nor, apparently, has mother Barbara Anderson ever indicated that she plans to discipline her son.
Instead, he's being traipsed around New York, appearing on such shows as "Good Morning America" and that bastion of top-notch investigative journalism, "Geraldo."
As punishment, perhaps he had to forgo makeup.
The mother has made a new profession of decrying the handling of her son, especially his at-school arrest and the infamous "strip search" at Juvenile Hall.
In addition, mother and son are sticking to the far-fetched -- but impossible to disprove -- explanation that some construction worker invited the boy to write his name in wet cement.
But it seems to me police and school officials went out of their way to spare the boy any embarrassment during his arrest.
The officers wore plain clothes and came to school in an unmarked car. The boy was summoned to the principal's office and the process was explained to him before he entered the room with the officer -- an officer he'd met before. The playground was even cleared before he was taken out of the school.
As for the strip search, Jeremy Anderson told a SUN reporter he was allowed to keep his boxer shorts on. He even said the process didn't embarrass him.
The search, meanwhile, is standard procedure at Juvenile Hall and is done for everyone's safety.
There are other discrepancies between the mother's account and procedural reality at Juvenile Hall.
Put it all together and you have some pretty sorry credibility in my book.
And a pretty sorry example to be setting for your son.
I'm not saying there may not have been mistakes made by officials -- not that I can actually put my finger on any of them. Perhaps an arrest wasn't necessary. Inscribing concrete isn't exactly a federal case, after all.
But the arrest wouldn't have occurred in the first place if the mother had taken the time to contact officials early on.
Most reasonable parents, it seems to me, would be calling everybody involved and setting up meetings to get to the bottom of the story.
Most reasonable parents would be making sure their son understood he was in the wrong, making sure he apologized, making sure he contributed somehow in restitution.
Maybe Jeremy Anderson should help pour the new concrete and guard it from vandals.
He shouldn't be hauled around the country helping blow smoke screens to obscure his family's liability.
archive
