Teen twins’ mother violates parental responsibility law

The Youngstown mother admits that her two teen-age boys were out of control.

By PATRICIA MEADE

VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN — Christine Mechling ignored warnings that she’d be arrested for letting her twin boys “run the streets.”

The 32-year-old Silliman Street mother now has the distinction of being the first person convicted in municipal court of violating the city’s parental responsibility ordinance.

The second-degree misdemeanor carries with it a penalty of up to 90 days in jail and $750 fine.

Last week, Judge Elizabeth A. Kobly sentenced Mechling to 200 hours of community service that must be completed by Aug. 7. She was also placed on two years’ intensive probation and ordered to finish a parenting program at juvenile court.

The boys turned 14 Friday.

“The judge — she put the fear of God in me,” Mechling said, perched on her porch steps with a backdrop of all-black kittens. “I don’t blame her.”

Judge Kobly said the twins’ mother “was creating little thugs.”

The judge said she intended to get Mechling’s attention about what is required “and if I put the fear of God in her, I accomplished that.”

Mechling said she has a drinking problem and is in treatment.

She readily admits that her boys were running the streets and getting into trouble. She also acknowledges being warned by police that she was responsible for their behavior.

“Her boys were terrorizing their neighborhood, and we put her on notice: ‘Control your kids or face parental responsibility,’” said Detective Sgt. John Perdue, commander of the Family Investigative Services Unit. “She’d get drunk and let them run the streets. They didn’t go to school. Sometimes she’d lock them out and they’d stay in vacant houses.”

Mechling said she never locked them out. She and the twins’ stepdad, who have been together for 11 years, would bolt the doors to keep the boys in, but they still got out.

“They shot out all the neighbors’ windows summer before last,” Mechling said. The boys, she said, got hold of a pellet gun that their stepdad had locked up.

“I covered for them a lot — they’d bust windows and steal bikes,” Mechling said. “They’d go to school, eat breakfast and then leave.”

Wake-up call

Perdue said he wants Mechling’s conviction to serve as a wake-up call for other parents whose kids are out of control. He said he has five similar cases pending, with the parents in each case put on notice that they must be responsible for their kids.

Perdue said there has to be a pattern of criminal acts by juveniles before a parental responsibility charge can be filed. He said investigators collected a variety of reports on Mechling’s sons.

The twins stole their stepdad’s PlayStation and BB gun, Perdue said. One of the twins — who suspected a boy ratted him out about the gun theft — is accused of stabbing the boy with a screwdriver, Perdue said.

The twins’ charges are pending at juvenile court, he said, adding neither of the boys are staying at home.

Mechling said one of her sons is in a rehabilitation facility in East Liverpool, and the other is incarcerated at the Mahoning County juvenile lockup, the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center.

She said the son at JJC was taken there after he ran away from Lincoln Place, a detention facility on East Indianola Avenue. Before Lincoln Place, he ripped out a smoke detector at DayBreak, a youth crisis shelter, so he could smoke, she said.

“I love them, and one day they’ll be home,” the twins’ mother said. “I want everyone to give me a year to get my life together.”

A warrant for Mechling was issued in December 2006, but Perdue said she “ran to rehab,” and the parental responsibility case kept getting postponed. She reached a plea agreement May 18.

Petty theft

On May 3, the twins were caught shoplifting at the Sparkle Market on Mahoning Avenue. The store manager told police that one of the boys concealed a 40-ounce bottle of beer under his clothing, and the other boy opened a package of TAG Body Spray and proceeded to douse himself in the fragrance.

When the manager attempted to take the spray away, the boy tried to kick and punch the man, police said. The boys’ mother could not be reached to come to the scene.

The stepdad “had to leave work for the rest of the day because Mechling could not be located and did not answer her cell phone,” said Patrolman Eugene Lopez in his report. The officer took the boys to their Silliman home and turned them over to their stepdad.

The twins were both charged with petty theft.

A neighbor of Mechling’s, who asked that her name not be used, said one of the boys was caught on her porch late at night not long ago and gave the excuse he was looking for cigarette butts.

“One day they were out wandering; they had been locked out of the house,” the neighbor said. “They’re little boys with big chips on their shoulders. They didn’t want water or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that we offered.”

The boys, wearing coats, slept on the porch of a vacant house two doors away from their own on a cold night two months ago, the neighbor said.

“They’re always on the loose,” the woman said. “My heart aches for them — you don’t lock kids out.”

meade@vindy.com