12-year-old boys punished by cleaning Ambridge streets in ‘I skipped school' shirts

AMBRIDGE, Pa. — Two 12-year-old boys were punished in a public way by their parents and Ambridge police Wednesday after they tried to skip school.

According to police, Richard Lumley Jr. and Corey Myers never showed up at school and caused three different schools to be placed on lockdown while authorities searched for them.

The boys were eventually located in an abandoned building nearby.

The boys’ parents and local police agreed to punish the boys by putting them in a work program while wearing neon shirts that said, “I skipped school today.”

The boys cleaned several Ambridge streets with brooms and dust pans donated by the police department.

“I figured instead of sending them home to watch TV because they’re both suspended from school, we could come out here to clean the street a little bit,” Ambridge Police Officer Zadock Dismuke said.

Lumley’s mother, Shannon Haswell, said she approved of the public discipline, as well as some of her own.

“He’s off the bike for two weeks and everything is gone. No Xbox, no bicycle, all gone,” Haswell said.

Both boys told Channel 11’s Alan Jennings that they “learned their lesson to not skip school anymore.”

WPXI