A 13-year-old Pittsburgh girl landed in an adult prison after lying to police about her name and age during a shoplifting arrest.... CLICK TO READ THE FULL NEWS HERE▶▶
Beaver County District Attorney Nate Bible says the girl was reported missing early last month and arrested for shoplifting at a Dollar General in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, U.S. on Aug. 17.
The girl gave police a false name and age, leading them to believe she was 18.
Eventually, she came clean and told police she was a teenager from the area. The police said they would release her to her parents, but she told them she was homeless, and the fake name she gave turned up no records.
Police followed protocol, arraigning her and placing her on bail.
She ended up at the adult prison for two weeks until an employee recognized her from a missing persons alert issued on August 6.
Beaver Falls police contacted child services agencies in Beaver County and Allegheny County to try to find information about the girl, but since she had given authorities a fake name, no records were found, Bible said.
Pittsburgh police previously posted information about the missing teen, and there had been several reports that she was seen around the area riding public transportation.
She has since been reunited with her parents, and the shoplifting charges were shifted to a juvenile court.
“It was either a jail employee or an inmate who saw the photo of this juvenile as a missing person and recognized her as being housed in the Beaver County jail,” Bible said. “Immediately, the deputy warden isolated the juvenile to keep her by herself. They contacted her parents, and her parents came and picked her up.”
Bible defended the police saying, “The officers did everything right and this happens quite frequently where they get a fake name or birthday from people who have warrants in different counties or different states,” Bible said. “They can’t just let her go because they can’t figure out who she is. I mean she did commit a crime.”
