Breakups are hard. But, some people channel their rage and move on in a healthy way.
Others decide to burn it all to the ground.
Redditor Suspicious-Post-7690 encountered this very issue with their son’s ex. So they turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for moral judgment.
They asked:
“AITA for pressing charges against a 18 year old girl?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I have a 17 year old son who has a girlfriend, and an ex. My son also has a car. I think you can see where this is going.”
“My son dumped his ex girlfriend because he began to have feelings for another girl. He spoke to me and I made sure to tell him to dump her lightly and not to hurt her feelings before trying things out with the other girl.”
“He did, telling ex why she was being dumped, obviously the ex was not happy.”
“She ended up keying my son’s car. I’m talking to the point where it is completely fucked up.”
“She carved my son’s new girlfriend’s name onto the doors and called her a slut. She also drew a man with a very small penis and labelled it my son’s name. She also broke one of the windows and poured a soft drink into it.”
“I come home as she’s pouring in the soft drink, and immediately call the cops. The ex got arrested, and had to pay bail.”
OP doesn’t regret their actions.
“I’m feeling like pressing charges because it’s my son’s first car and we don’t want to spend much money on a new car.”
“The ex’s mother came to my house and was full on screaming, about how I’m a monster for calling the cops on a black girl, and how my son cheated and deserved to have his car ruined.”
“I don’t feel in the slightest bit bad for pressing charges and ruining this girl’s life, because she’s acting like a complete psycho.”
“AITA?”
Redditors gave their opinions on the situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors agreed OP was not the a**hole.
“NTA. She committed a crime, and needs to take responsibility for her life.” ~ Ok_Smell_8260
“It’s a crime, but she’s already got arrested for it. OP is not going to press “criminal” charges for it, only a prosecutor can do that.”
“What OP can (and should) do is file a civil complaint in a small claims court where they will be awarded the money they’re owed for the repairs of the damaged car.”
“OP might also want to file for restraining orders if that family keep with their behavior of harassment. Up to them.” ~ Djorgal
“The DA is probably asking if she wants to pursue criminal charges.” ~ adgiebaby3094
“They don’t ask. Granted, my experience is limited to working a couple years in a police station where I was the one who did communication with the DA’s office.”
“They didn’t ask deliberately because their job was their job: to prosecute when the law had been broken. They didn’t take kindly to people trying to interfere with that.”
“Also, they didn’t want people who had been wronged, pressured and harassed by the people who had wronged them to “drop the charges.” There were some instances when the police would ask the victim if they wanted a report filed or not, but once the DA picked it up, it was pretty much out of everyone else’s hands.” ~ HappyLucyD
“As a prosecutor, we often looked for ‘does the victim give a sh*t?” in smaller cases. Petty theft, trespass, vandalism, even minor assaults – if the victim didn’t care, we generally were happy to drop the case.”
“The situations that we’d go forward with regardless of the victim’s wishes were situations of domestic violence or where the defendant was otherwise dangerous or had a long record.” ~ Manofthedecade
“From the little I know from working for a judge years ago they sometimes ask (for bigger crimes at least) if the injured party is ok with the DA offering a plea deal. And sometimes if the injured party says no it doesn’t matter. Most times unless it is a higher profile or seriously terrible crime (obviously depending on DA) the DA will plea it down because it saves money, time and ensures at least some type of punishment whereas if they go to court the defendant could get off due to a technicality.” ~ Brain_Dead_mom
Redditors agree the girl’s parents should intervene.
“OP is not ruining this young woman’s life either. If my daughter did that, I would definitely contact OP and profusely apologize, offer to pay for all the damages and then make my daughter pay me back.”
“The young woman committed a crime and her mom saying OPs son deserved this shows why the young woman thought it was okay. Apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”
“By pressing charges, OP is teaching the young woman, not ruining her life. She is only 18. She will have time to recover from this, could possibly get it expunged from her record and move on. Pressing charges seems like the wake up call this young woman needs because her mother isn’t capable of raising / advising her properly. NTA.” ~ tikanique
“I feel like allowing the ex to get away with this behavior would be ruining her life. If there aren’t consequences this time, what’s stopping her from doing it again?” ~ DrinkingSocks
“Judging the mothers response we can see why the ex thought this was acceptable.” ~ Practical-Big7550
“NTA- she can be upset all she wants, she doesn’t get to destroy someone’s property. Her being black had nothing whatever to do with it. Immaturity knows no color.” ~ Libba_Loo
“There is definitely a different level of threat when calling the police on different ethnicities. But if you don’t want to have police called onto you, don’t do things that get the police called.” ~ Cr4ckshooter
“I didn’t meant to imply that there isn’t, but when someone damages someone else’s property, they open themselves to that risk. It’s not on the property owner to just take the loss because of what might happen to the perpetrator. Judging by the girl’s mom’s reaction, she wasn’t going to learn responsibility for her actions any other way, which really would ruin her life.” ~ Libba_Loo
Alexa, play “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood.