Teens Charged With Teaching Tots To Toke

Tape Shows 2-Year-Old, 5-Year-Old Getting Lesson In Smoking What Appears To Be Marijuana

(CBS/AP)  Two teenagers were arrested after police found a video of them showing two children, including one just two years old, how to smoke marijuana, authorities said.

Fort Worth Police found the video Feb. 22 while investigating Demetris McCoy, 17, and Vanswan Polty, 18, in connection with some burglaries.

In the video, the children are called "potheads" and a man can be seen placing what appears to be a marijuana cigarette into a baby's mouth. In another part of the video a boy is seen smoking on his own. The children were also asked if they "have the munchies."

"It is unbelievable," Bruce Ure of the Watauga Department of Public Safety told the Dallas Morning News. "You can hear one of them say, 'Let's get high.' And they're just encouraging them to keep puffing on it."

Police said the boys are McCoy's nephews, aged 2 and 5. The children have been placed in foster care, the child protective services said.

Both men have been arrested on felony charges of injury to a child and were being held in jail Sunday. It was not immediately known if the two men had attorneys.

"The 2-year-old is puffing away and obviously inhaling. He's coughing like he's got a smoker's cough," Ure told the newspaper. "The 2-year-old is stumbling. He's giggling. He's falling down. He's debilitated. Our suspects are just laughing uncontrollably. They think this is the funniest thing they ever saw."

Shirley Russell, McCoy's grandmother, told KXAS-TV that she was working when the video was made.

"I'm very upset about it. I didn't raise them like that and they know I didn't raise them like that," Russell said. "I feel terrible about it, it's outrageous, all the things that went on and I didn't know nothing about them."

Asked for comment by KXAS-TV as he was being led into jail, McCoy responded with expletives.

A telephone listing found for a Vanswan Polty in the Fort Worth-area was not in service. A telephone listing for McCoy could not be immediately found.

[vanity42]

I think that in todays world you might just see anything happen. People are not the same anymore the generations have changed. You have in experienced young mothers that have raised un informed ungodly children. So why wouldn't something like this happen. The problem is the community. We see things then ready to comment but not stepping up to take action. Obviously the 2 teenage boys learned this behavior from someone else. They were high themselves and apparently thought it was funny. The sad thing is that they will just go to trial and then jail. Remember they are children as well. So instead of a 2 and 5 year old damaged all 4 black children will suffer. It is apparent the boys need drug abuse counsel oppossed to jail. Jail is not the answer here. I am not saying thaey should have consequences to suffer but what about them doing a year of community service opposed to jail. It is just another opportunity to send 2 very young black teenage boys to jail. "Each One REACH ONE." Reach a youth before it comes to this! What are you doing in your community....Be a Change AGENT!

[mzboss-2009]

People always want to see something not as a problem, but as a racial insignificance. What michaure is not realizing is that there is an underlying problem with teens-- black white purple whatever. The mother? I do not feel she is the one to blame. A single mother can only do so much, then trust whomever is helping her to make correct decisions. No one blames the mother of people who are addicted to meth, or blames the mother when a child is sexually abused. But this being a single black women, she must obviously have some irresponsible aspects to alow this to happen. People need to realize that she is probably working, making a living for her children and TRUSTED her dumb *** younger brother to help her. There father probably isnt much to talk about, but i do not think the mother is to blame. michaure obviusly are not a women, you havent seen struggle and you must be the greatest person and or parent around-- YOU WISH!! Get a grip on reality.

[ecuadoriana]

ronin10, whatithink & yvette77- thanks for your insightful comments directed towards michaure. Unfortunately, like commonsense to these teens, your collective wisdom is lost on michure. He/she will always live in the sad little world of fear & hatred. That's ok, I guess somebody has to live there. I'm just glad it's not me.

I wonder if michure is that type of person who would rather drown than have a black man give him mouth to mouth. Or would he say "no thanks, I'd rather die" than to receive donated organs because the donor may be black? He'd rather his family burn to death in a fire than to be touched by a black fire fighter?

As a typical narrow minded thinker he only sees the negative. If he had been born black he would hate whites. That's just the sort of person he is. He probably hates ***, jews, chinese, & vegetarians as well! He hates everybody because then he has someone to blame his short comings on, rather than take a look inside himself.

[doodlebugs4]

I am a mother and i have to say this it the most apalling thing i have ever seen. Where is the mother of these 2 small children? If these were my children and my brother or anyone else watching my children did something like this i would, well lets just say the cops might want to take me to jail to. These boys should be given the max penalty and then some for what they did to these small children, hell there just babies. What the hell were they thinking? From what i have seen thses boys think this is a joke and they dont seem sorry at all for what they did to these poor inocent babies and for that i hope they rot in jail for a very long time. While there in ther i hope they meet up with a few daddy's in there that find what they did just as apalling as i did.

[michaure]

so blinded stupid people here.... look another BLACK in front page news this morning. suprise to me NOPE!!!

[whatithink-2009]

To Michaure,

The only person that I see who needs to be shipped some place is you. People who make blanket statements about others are a huge part of the problem. That is also the problem. Those that are the problem don't realize that they are...THAT MEANS YOU.

[whatithink-2009]

To Michaure,

If you are going to quote statistics, you should at least give the correct statistics. It makes you look stupid, otherwise. Blacks do not make up 80% of the prison population. And if you think of all the crime going on in places like Washington that never get prosecuted, you'd realize that being a criminal and going to prison are not the same thing. Poor people in general are more likely to go to jail than the rich. And, you are more like to go to jail for stealing a loaf of bread than you are for stealing the pension money from a bunch of widows and orphans.

[yvette77-2009]

Michaure-
Yes you are indeed entitled your opinion and thus must accept ownership for it. However, you must also take ownership for your ignorance as well. "Removing" an entire race of people will not solve anything. There is absolutely no rationale in the comments you made. It almost sounds as if you have pictures of Adolph Hitler hanging on your walls.

Drugs are problem in every part of our society regardless of race. There are upper middle class and children of suburbia popping mommy and daddy's prescription meds or smoking meth in rural America. These kids just so happened to have their senseless crime documented. Before you start "removing" races of people why don't you look at the bigger problem at hand first.

Drugs are a problem that are deteriorating every corner of our nation. It's not immune to a particular race or group of people but then again neither is stupidity as you have graciously shown.

[wdgliude]

were is jessie jackson i gess he not outraged

[michaure]

Freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment

get over it i will right as i wish don't like it don't read it. i don't care for what you said but i'm not telling you to beat it, your intitled to your opinion as am i.

[burlykatz]

For anyone who thinks this is an issue of race... get over yourselves! I feel sorry for you people. This is about children given an illegal substance by STUPID teenagers/adults-- whether they be white, black, hispanic, asian, etc.etc. It's sick in any race/culture.

Without a doubt everyone in that household knew what was going on. In fact, it was probably something that this moronic famiy did together! And I agree with whoever said that the fact they taped this shows how stupid they are! If they didn't tape it, the kids may have ended up dead (and still may if they return to that household). Those children should be taken away from that family and never given back.
And for anyone who thinks it's funny or amusing to see 2 children high, you are seriously ill. They could have killed these kids!

[ecuadoriana]

I am very worried about the long term psychological effect on those two little ones. The teens are a lost cause, unless some miracle happens- like getting the *** kicked out of them in prison. They should also be made to register as s*x offenders, because they did violate the bodies of those little ones.

What's going to happen to those little ones when they miss the experience of getting stoned? To them it was fun. They don't understand the ramifications. When they are told that what happened was bad, then they'll feel violated & have trust issues. But what about later, when they're older & they encounter kids in school offering them to get high? Will they be more likely to go along because they will remember the experience as fun?

Thank goodness someone saw this tape & investigated! How many times before & after this tape was made did these teens do this to these children? What next? Crack? I shudder to think how closely these little ones could have come to dying so these teens can get this kick. Now they'll get kicked in prison.

[robjk1-2009]

some kids don't have a chance, what a shame!

[rohink-2009]

Mom 'Devastated' at Claim Tots Smoked Pot
From ABC news. She was in the house when it was going on and defended her brother (the children's uncle) saying she knew he didn't mean them any harm.

Just lovely............

She should be charged also.

[scott4261]

First of all, the argument of whether marijuana should or should not be legalized is completely irrelevant to this discussion. We are talking about two teenagers who got two babies stoned (and they taped it!). The criticism would be and should be just as harsh if they put bourbon in the babies' milk to get them drunk or to make them sleep.

Second, why didn't the grandmother realize that these two thugs were not responsible enough to baby sit? If those kids are two stoners, then it should have blatantly obvious that they were not up to the task long before now.

[rf35]

Terrible thing to do to a couple of kids. Probably was pretty funny, though. I can't wait to get home and watch it (stupid work network filters).

[fredegrar]

"Leave Bill Bennett out of this... And, I have lived a few years and have learned along the way.
Posted by rohink at 11:52 AM : Mar 05, 2007
---------------

My apologies. I didn't mean to minimize your opinions because they appeared to resemble those of some other more recognizable public figure. I don't know why I'm being so confrontational this morning anyway. I guess since my two most closely held personal causes are legalization and gay rights, I have knee-jerk reactions to ideas that look like conservative talking points on these issues. I think I'll go find something more productive to do for a while...

[anopinion1]

as long as the doctor wasnt gonna be high when he came in for the surgery...it would be fine

untill they come up with a foolproof way to test if someone is high at that moment like a breathalizer does for alachol it prob wont be legal or even be considered...
i.e. people driving baked

isnt this the land of the free??? yet they make things illigal that can harm us??? lets make salt, vege oil, butter, all illigal to

[connapa]

And people thought Beavis and Butthead were stupid.

[fredegrar]

"Would you hire someone to work on your home, if they smelled like they just came back from smoking pot?
They will NEVER legalize pot because then you'd have to pay a tax on it."
Posted by AmandaSW1
-------------------------------------------------

No, and I wouldn't hire them if they smelled like gin or tequila or rum either - but AT LEAST somebody paid (relatively high) taxes on the alcohol! People who use mind altering substances on the job deserve to be fired (or sued or charged with a crime in the theoretical case of the doctor or day care worker that you cite).