Deb Lodge-Schnellenberg. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
EMMA BROWN
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A teenage boy who threatened to smash a woman’s door in while demanding the keys to her car deserves a second chance.
That’s according to Masterton’s Deb Lodge-Schnellenberg, who is begging for the teen not to be incarcerated but instead be given the help he needed.
Lodge-Schnellenberg was unpacking her belongings on Wednesday night after shifting to Albert St when she heard banging on the glass back door just after midnight.
She saw a young man banging on the door and yelling “that is my car” and demanding the keys.
Knowing full well that it was not, she stood her ground, gave him “the old lady stare”, and said “well I can’t help you”.
He continued to bang and yell that it was his car.
She asked him which car he thought was his [because there were two outside] and he said the blue one, which had LeReve and Deb Lodge-Schnellenberg written on the side – she is a consultant for LeReve, a health and beauty products company.
She kept telling him she couldn’t help him and that she would call the police.
His yelling got louder and harder, “I’ll smash your f***ing door in”.
She said she could see he was “off his face”.
“I was terrified, but he was not going to see it.”
She walked to the other end of the house and called 111.
Not long after, she saw a police car drive past and got a call saying they had arrested the person.
Officers turned up about an hour later and took her statement.
She said they were lovely and that the way they talked, even the one on the phone, was very calming and nice.
“They didn’t leave here until they knew I was okay.”
She believed the teen was a methamphetamine addict and asked the police to not lock him up.
“I felt really, really sorry for the kid.”
“At the end of the day, he has an addiction issue.”
She said he was most likely so high at the time, that he would not remember what happened or what he did.
She is angry with him for the disrespect he showed her and said that he should know better.
“He needs help, regardless that he scared me.
“The last thing he needs is to be in an environment where he is just going to get worse.
“It’s our responsibility as a community to help our young people.”
She said it was all good to talk about what was happening and what problems there were, but something needed to be done about it.
The teenager appeared in Masterton Youth Court on Thursday on two charges of demands to steal and one of “other burglary”.
What a brave woman Deb is. I agree with her and think it is more important to pursue restorative justice and help this lad become a functioning member of the society in which he operates. I’m not talking about rewarding him but he definitely needs guidance and needs to get off the meth and reclaim his life before he wastes the rest of it.