Posted on 06/25/2012 7:02:46 PM PDT by presidio9
Kaytlen Lopan, a 13-year-old girl in Utah, had her ponytail cut off, was jailed for 30 days and was forced to undergo a strip search by juvenile justice officials, because she allegedly helped a friend cut another little girl’s hair.
Lopan's unnamed friend allegedly cut a few inches of hair of a three-year-old girl that they befriended at a local McDonald's.
Lopan said her friend "called a little girl over and cut some of her hair off, like just a tiny little piece. I didn’t know what to do, so I helped her hide the hair. Then I called my mom to come get me.”
KLS5 reports that, two weeks later, Lopan was visited at school by a police officer, who said the little girl’s parents were pressing assault charges.
Utah’s 7th District Juvenile Judge Scott Johansen sentenced Lopan spend 30 days in a detention center, pay a $350 fine and serve 276 community work hours, but reduced those hours by 150 because Lopan's mother, Valerie Bruno, was willing to cut Lopan’s hair in front of the victim’s parents.
Bruno, has filed an official complaint against the judge. Bruno insisted her daughter didn’t actually participate in the hair-cutting, but got a 30-day term in the Castle Country Youth Center, where she was strip searched upon admittance.
Bruno said: “Now, she won’t even sleep by herself. She’s very upset and she [often] cries.”
Judge Johansen sentenced the other little girl to have her hair cut as well, but she was allowed to get it cut at a local salon and was not removed from parental custody. Bruno believes Lopan got a harsher sentence because had done a prank phone before with a friend.
Bruno said: “Kaytlen did not cut her hair. She did not do it. The probation officer talked her into saying she did because she was ‘guilty by association.’ She told her, even if you were just there, you’re just as guilty.”
Dollars to donuts the little brat sassed the judge and showed no respect for the law or remorse for her actions.
I didn’t say THE Repeat Offender....she’s not been around long enough to take your place.
I'm just giving you a hard time.
Some people just need to be exterminated like vermin, seriously!
this country is so uneven in its “justice”....we let felons out on bail and they kill others but we’ve apparently got so much freaking time to arrest, jail, charge, and try and imprison 13 yro hair cutting criminals...
Guess you think it’s ok she assaulted a child 10 yrs younger?
I read she was with her grandfather in the play area and it happened in the tube thing which adults can’t get in..
Tell that to the girl she made crank calls on threatening doing horrible stuff to her.
This time it was only a haircut the next kid may not be so lucky
If the child was injured, of course not.
I guess you think it’s ok to send children to institutions where sexual assault is not uncommon, huh?
With this little witch YES she threatened to have another child raped and sliced up THAT is not the actions of a normal teen.
You’d let her do that to YOUR 3 year-old?
So the solution is to send her off to be traumatized even further and probably become more of a monster than she was.
Great plan!
I wouldn’t and I’d expect justice to be done.
But I don’t consider prison to be the only appropriate place to punish people.
I consider it ONE of the appropriate places to punish people. Apparently, you think no one should ever go to juvie, because something bad might happen to them there.
Fair enough, so just come out and say it: no minors should ever be confined by the State.
I was no angel growing up, and I never got anywhere near juvie.
But I never committed wierd assaults on other people's toddler children, either.
It’s not that I don’t believe juvenile delinquents should go to jail. It depends on the severity of the crime.
Forced haircut, no.
Murder, yes.
An appropriate punishment would have been to have her either pay whatever a haircut might have cost at a beauty salon or the equivalent in community service.
Jail is supposed to be a place you send people when there crime allows for no hope for atonement and reconciliation, not the hammer to every nail.
Oh threatening another child with rape in phone calls for 8 months is ok with you too?
That is what she did too..
I wasn’t aware of that, and yes, that part warrants jailtime, imo.
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