Brent was questioned by the Mesa Police Department for roughly an hour and a half before being read his JUVENILE Miranda at 11:27 am on Friday, March 23rd, 2007. According to the police report, he was "direct-filed" into the adult criminal system at 11:30am. Why wasn't he offered an attorney and the right to remain silent BEFORE he was questioned?
Why is it that, once the Peace Officers manipulated a separation from his parents, that his parents-- DESPITE REPEATED REQUESTS-- were not reunited with him, to advise him? We all had reasonable cause to believe we were NOT able to freely depart because of the number of armed police officers in attendance at the school (which is considered "under arrest" here in AZ: see Statutes), we did not realize that being detained really DID mean "arrested" for our CHILD. If we, the parents, did not know this, how can the police expect a child to know this? Or to know that the police are allowed to lie to him by law to get him to speak, so that they can later "arrest" and charge him?
He had not actually been arrested at the time of separation, so he was still a "juvenile". The police stated he did not want us present during questioning prior to arrest; who cares what he wanted? He said that ONLY ONE TIME, right AFTER receiving Miranda and never repeated it thereafter, NOT during the previous 1-1/2 hours! He's our kid, and we had the right to have access to him, didn't we? AND they only asked him ONCE if he wanted us there, immediately after reading the Miranda, per the video recordings. But we need to point out that he was already TALKING, and we can understand why the police wouldn't want us there to ADVISE Brent not to speak!
While everyone who knows about THIS part of the circumstances agrees it was both ethically wrong AND unConstitutional, our legal system says IT DOESN'T MATTER because of all that has happened since this initial abuse of power. How can it NOT MATTER? We're talking about this child's life, for criminy's sake! What could matter MORE???
Maybe the only thing that COULD matter more is being tossed into an adult jail without any counsel for almost three weeks, believing that you'd been arrested as a juvenile on two criminal counts, and then finding out AFTER being railroaded almost overnight into a Grand Jury proceeding, that you'd been charged with all kinds of trumped-up, idealized charges for no other reason than that the LAW ALLOWS IT. (Wait'll we get to the MEDIA accounts, totalling well over 40 charges for THOUGHTS which were never once redacted!) Whose kid is next? YOURS?
OH! BTW-- the court generously assigned him the NAME of a public defender AFTER the Grand Jury handed down their indictment. THAT person never contacted Brent at all, and when we, his parents, asked the Clerk of the Court for the name of this person, she stated that he HAD an appointed Public Defendeer, but no actual PERSON had been named as yet.
