9 Investigates

9 Investigates students skipping school, committing crimes

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said they expect to file more charges against a teenager accused of breaking into cars in the North Davdison Community.

Garamond Dixson-Rozear, 18, is facing more than a dozen charges for this week's string of break-ins.

Police can’t say if Dixson-Rozear is still in high school, but it is the kind of crime spree they have been seeing a lot of lately in which the suspects are students skipping school.

Eyewitness News has been tracking some of the most serious cases for months. Reporter Mark Becker found that even police and the school system can’t say how big the problem is.

CMPD: 'Just a variety of things'

Church member Ksang Bonyo showed Becker where someone had broken into a Montagnard church off Tuckaseegee Road and tried to set the building on fire.

The suspects are students who skipped out of West Mecklenburg High School.

“Then they burned the paper and burned the side of the window,” Bonyo said.

Officer Mitzi Foster investigated the break-in at the church and other cases in other neighborhoods where the suspects are students who skipped school.

“They’ve had their music equipment stolen, the storage shed has been broken into,” Foster said. “We have car break-ins, auto thefts, robberies, assaults. Just a variety of things."

Bigger issues

Channel 9 found the problem is bigger than one school or even one side of town.

Eyewitness News was there when police caught a 16-year-old student from North Mecklenburg High School, who police said cut classes, broke into a home and raped a woman.

In December, a student from South Mecklenburg High School told police that another student robbed him in the restroom of a McDonald's when both should have been in school.

Police have received other complaints from a shopping center and nearby neighborhoods.

“We’ve instituted bike patrols, we’ve worked with the neighborhoods behind South Meck to identify recurrent truancy problems and address them,” said Lt. Trvis Pardue with CMPD’s South Division.

Becker found examples where students have skipped school and committed crimes, but he also found that the schools and police could not say exactly how many because neither organization keeps track of those numbers.

Neighbors say schools not doing enough

Some people in the neighborhoods affected said the schools aren’t doing enough to deal with the problem.

“No, no,” said one neighbor who was not identified. “They do not do enough to keep those kids inside that school.”

“I don’t understand,” said a woman who lives behind Harding. “And I’ve asked them. It’s like ya’ll don’t care.”

Bonyo took photographs of the students hanging out at his church.

“I even stopped at school and report that the students from the school are hanging around church property,” Bonyo said. “It didn’t make any difference.”

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools provided a statement saying, “When students are observed leaving campus without permission, school staff and security personnel work to bring them back and contact parents.”

Many schools have fences, but Channel 9 saw where some fences were cut or knocked down. While schools can repair and replace the fences, schools and police said there’s a bigger problem they can’t fix without help.

“There’s a misconception that people have that we can force these kids to go to school,” Foster said. “The schools and the Police Department can’t fix what’s broken at home.”

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