Mom turns in son after seeing social media post about attempted robbery, Florida cops say

A mom recognized her son in a social media post from law enforcement seeking to identify a suspect in an attempted armed robbery, so she brought him down to the station, Florida law enforcement said.

The mom said her son’s face “is all over the internet” and she had been getting calls from family after the Marion County Sheriff’s Office posted a photo from a Dec. 17 incident at an Ocala convenience store, according to an arrest affidavit.

During the incident, the 15-year-old wearing a ski mask on top of his head walked up to a man sitting in a vehicle outside the store and asked him for money, deputies said.

The man said he refused, then the teen pulled a ski mask over his face and pulled out what appeared to be a hand gun, according to deputies.

The teen is accused of pointing the gun at the man and telling him to get out of the vehicle and give him money, but the man told deputies he reached under the seat to make it look like he was about to pull out a gun and asked the teen, “Do you really want to do this?”

The teen got scared and rode away on a bike, deputies said.

Investigators said they couldn’t identify the teen for nearly two weeks, so on Dec. 30 they took to social media to ask the public for help and posted a photo of him before he had pulled down the ski mask.

The teen saw himself in the Facebook post and threw the weapon, which he described as a BB gun, in a nearby pond, according to deputies. But others had seen the post too, and his mom confronted him before bringing him to the station on Jan. 1.

He told deputies he planned to rob someone with a fake gun that day because he didn’t have money, but other people did, according to the report.

He dictated an apology letter to the man he’s accused of trying to rob and was booked in juvenile detention, deputies said.

Ocala is about an 80-mile drive northwest from Orlando.