An 11-year-old Florida boy returned to court Tuesday over a traffic citation that began with a Labor Day ride on a 4,500-watt electric motorcycle.
Cade Kirchner appeared with his parents and attorney in Seminole County court, where his lawyer entered a not-guilty plea during a hearing that lasted less than two minutes, according to News 6 video from the hearing.
His father, Chris Kirchner, criticized the requirement that his son appear in person.
“How ridiculous is that that he had to miss school for that?” he told News 6 after the hearing.
The judge ordered the family back to court Dec. 2.
What Started It
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Editor’s note: The Oviedo Police Department redacted portions of the body-camera recording before releasing it. Sections containing no usable audio or visual information because of those redactions were removed. Otherwise, the video is presented as received from the department.
The case stems from Cade’s Sept. 7 stop in Oviedo, where police said he was riding a QRonge electric dirt bike with a 4,500-watt motor and pegs instead of pedals on a public road.
Body-camera video shows the officer asking whether he knew the machine was a motorcycle.
Cade said yes.
Police records describe the model as capable of roughly 50 mph, although the officer did not report measuring him at that speed and left the speed fields on the citation blank.
Florida law defines an electric bicycle as having fully operable pedals and a motor rated below 750 watts. Cade’s machine had no pedals and six times that power ceiling, so police treated it as a motorcycle.
The citation lists one misdemeanor charge under Florida Statute 320.02 for operating an unregistered motor vehicle.
The officer also noted no insurance, no motorcycle endorsement, no eye protection, and the 4,500-watt motor, but those observations did not become additional citations.
“You could have gotten six criminal violations, but I’m giving you one,” the officer told him on bodycam.
The Fingerprint
The footage also shows the officer taking Cade’s right thumbprint before releasing him.
Police said the fingerprint was placed on the citation because Cade could not present a driver’s license. He was not booked into jail, and court records list no arrest date and $0 bond.
The officer repeatedly calls him “buddy,” explains that signing the citation is not an admission of guilt, and walks him through the mandatory court appearance.
His attorney entered the not-guilty plea Tuesday.
“We’ll get it all resolved,” he told reporters afterward. “No doubt in my mind.”
The case returns to court Dec. 2.
All parties are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
I don’t understand how this kid can get off this charge. Police handled it great and was a teaching moment for them with this child. The boy is more mature than his father. BTW, why does everyone ask for a supervisor? My God, the kid was wrong, knew it, and owned up to it. Is a supervisor changing anything.?
Why was it scheduled for Dec? This is cut and dry. I’d love to see this update on Dec 2.
I agree with your assessment. I thought the officers handled the situation extremely well, and the boy showed more maturity than either parent did.
You can even hear his mother in the background saying he is a straight-A student. That may very well be true, but it has nothing to do with whether he should be riding that bike where he was riding it. Good kids make bad decisions too, and part of growing up is learning that decisions can have consequences.
What bothers me is the instinct to excuse it with some version of “boys will be boys.” If that child had been seriously hurt, I suspect the conversation would change very quickly. People would be asking why police had not done more, why the bike was allowed on the road, or why a manufacturer could sell something capable of creating that risk in the first place.
There is also a larger lesson here. What are we teaching kids if they can admit they were wrong, understand exactly what they did wrong, and then watch the adults around them try to make the consequences disappear?
As for asking for a supervisor, I had the same reaction. The child understood what happened. The officers explained it calmly. I’m not sure what anyone expected a supervisor to change.