School Vandal Draws Exceptional Sentence 13-Year-Old Gets 135 Days In Detention And $12,000 Fine For Ransacking School And Church

A judge sentenced a 13-year-old boy to 135 days in juvenile detention Wednesday for a Mother’s Day vandalism spree that had “an impact on everybody.”

Superior Court Judge Neal Q. Rielly also ordered the boy to pay more than $12,000 in restitution and undergo intense supervision for a year after he is released.

The sentence far exceeded the standard sentencing range of 30 days in detention, a term even Public Defender Maurina Ladich called “clearly too lenient.”

The boy and another 13-year-old were arrested May 11 after police found them rampaging through Sacajawea Middle School on the South Hill.

Before they were stopped, the pair smashed dozens of computers, splattered paint on walls, trashed a school art project and scrawled a death threat on the wall of an assistant principal’s office.

Initial estimates put damage at $100,000, but the actual figure was closer to $20,000, Deputy Prosecutor Shane Smith said.

They eventually were charged with ransacking the school and vandalizing a nearby church and post office.

Judge Tari Eitzen on Monday sentenced the other boy, a former Sacajawea student, to more than a year in a state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration facility. Unlike the boy sentenced Wednesday, he has an extensive criminal record, including convictions for car theft, third-degree theft and burglary.

One of the boys said they began destroying things that night because “it was something to do.” The boy sentenced Wednesday said he was sorry.

The boys have been locked up in the county’s juvenile detention center since their arrest.

Last month, they each pleaded guilty to seven felony counts stemming from their night of destruction.

The Sacajawea case outraged the community, and Rielly said Wednesday the reverberations are still being felt.

“It’s had an impact on everybody,” said the judge, who sent three kids through Sacajawea. “It hurts people. It leaves scars on them. They’re never the same again.”

Sacajawea Principal Herb Rotchford attended Wednesday’s sentencing hearing to introduce himself to the convicted boy “and personalize what you did.”

During a 15-minute speech in which he cried, Rotchford told Rielly he was particularly disturbed by the ferocity of the crime, especially the attack on the art project. The boys destroyed nearly 50 works produced by students, he said.

At one point, they used a paper cutter to behead one student’s ceramic sculpture of a person, then poured red paint on the piece to simulate blood, Rotchford said.

“It goes beyond simple deviant behavior for a thrill,” he said. “There seems to me to be a deep, anti-social psychotic state of mind here that disturbs me. What causes two 13-year-olds to be so destructive?”

The boy sentenced Wednesday has had an unstable family life, a juvenile court official said.

His mother sent him to live with his father recently because she couldn’t control him, said Carl Bruscoe, a juvenile probation officer.

The boy soon left the father’s home as well because he couldn’t follow the rules of the house, and spent most of this year living with friends, Bruscoe said.

The boy’s mother and father, who are divorced, attended the Wednesday hearing. The woman, who is remarried and living in North Idaho, said she’d be willing to take the boy back if he received counseling.

Rotchford offered to let the boy work off some of his 80 hours of community service by doing custodial work at the school.

Rielly welcomed the support.

“If we don’t assist him in getting control of his life, he’s going to damage this community again,” the judge said.

, DataTimes