SEQUIM – The father of a 12-year-old Port Orchard boy whose prank prompted a seven-hour search spanning two counties has offered to reimburse the costs of looking for his son.
No criminal charges will be filed against the boy who left a note saying, “Help me” under a plate at Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill in Sequim on Dec. 28.
“The kid has abjectly apologized in writing,” said City Attorney Craig Ritchie.
“He now knows it not only cost money, but also those who responded weren’t available for actual emergencies or criminal cases.”
The search began at 1:20 p.m. after staff at the Sequim Applebee’s Restaurant found the note.
Sequim police tracked the family to a Gig Harbor address, and Pierce Sheriff’s deputies found the child safe in the legal custody of his father.
The note had been left in the restaurant as a prank.
The boy’s father has asked about the cost of reimbursing the city and other agencies involved, and that amount is being discussed, Ritchie said.
The father made the offer. The city didn’t charge him with a bill.
Ritchie said there’s little legal support for charging people for such searches.
Some statutes allow recovering costs for rescues if it can be proven that a person acted recklessly, but this was a search, not a rescue, he said.
“Here we decided to search, and I’ll really glad they did, especially given the Idaho case,” Ritchie said.
Shasta Groene, an 8-year-old Idaho girl kidnapped by a sex offender, was rescued in July 2005 after a waitress at a Denny’s Restaurant in Coeur d’Alene recognized her from a missing children poster.
If any criminal charges had been filed, they would have been in juvenile court, not municipal court, because of the boy’s age, Ritchie said.
“But then what is the crime? Reckless endangerment? The police weren’t themselves weren’t really in danger,” he said.
“If you want to make a case for theft of services, there has to be intent but not a lot thinking went into this.
“But I wouldn’t recommend criminal prosecution anyway, because this was just a 12-year-old doing what they do,” Ritchie said.
“It’s not quite the same as someone crying wolf,” he said.
“It was miscommunication. The boy didn’t think how others might interpret things.”
The Sequim Police Department had nine people working the case.
Also involved were personnel from PenCom, the Gig Harbor Police Department and the Pierce County Sheriff Department’s records division and dispatch center.
