Boy, 6, accused of trying to steal bicycle, attacking police officer

PITTSBURGH — According to police, three young juveniles were detained Friday after they were caught trying to steal bicycles in the city’s Troy Hill neighborhood.

Officers were dispatched to the 2000 block of Straubs Lane just before 7 p.m. for the report of an attempted bike theft.

Upon arrival, police reported that two adults were standing over three juveniles, accusing them of trying to steal their children’s’ bikes from their back yard.

A responding officer reported that one of the accused children, later identified as a 6-year-old Chalais Ramey, walked toward him and grabbed his gun with both hands in an attempt to remove it from the holster.

“I tried to take the cop’s gun,” Ramey admitted to Channel 11’s Jennifer Tomazic.

According to police, the officer lifted the boy away from his body and the boy began kicking and screaming as he held onto the gun.

Once the officer gained control of the boy, he placed him in the back of another officer’s patrol car.

The police report said the boy then caused a commotion in the back of the police car and when he was told that his mother would soon be there, he lunged at an officer and bit him.

“When I was in the back of the car I was kicking the window and he slammed me, and he put the handcuffs on me and he choked me, and that's when he put me back in the car,” said Ramey.

“I'm not going to make excuses. It was not right for him to reach for the gun, but it was not right for a cop to do what he did to my son. He's only 6. He didn't have to do that,” said Ramey’s mother, Lisa Miller.

“I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. They weren't getting rough on him. The kid was only so big,” said Michael Chernosky, who witnessed the incident.

Ramey suffered some cuts on his face and was checked out at UPMC Children’s Hospital and UPMC Western Psychiatric Institute.

“I'm grateful that's all it was, was a bruise,” said Cmdr. RaShall Brackney. “As you can imagine, going for an officer’s gun, you could have resulted in a much more serious physical interaction with that young child.”

Ramey was with his 5- and 10-year-old brothers when the incident happened.

Whenwhile, in an unrelated story, another 6-year-old Pittsburgh boy is accused of pulling a knife on a playmate at a local playground. Read more here.

WPXI