(Newser) ? You see someone smashing a hammer into a house you've been renovating. You call 911 and run inside, where you find four local boys, aged between eight and 10, all vandalizing the house. What do you do? New York county man Jesse Daniels decided to put the kids in a closet until the cops arrived?a move that could now send him to jail with charges of endangering the welfare of a child, reports 13 WHAM. He faces a maximum sentence of a year in county jail for each charge.
"One person was sitting on the floor and the other ones were swinging, just swinging crazy," says Daniels. He claims he took a hammer off one kid before corralling them all into the closet. "I said listen you guys are staying here until the police come, period," he says. But the boys and their parents tell a different story. They say Daniels threatened the kids with the hammer and grabbed one boy by the throat. "I understand they were in the wrong but there are other ways to handle it," says one father. "He knew who the kids were it's not like they were strangers and send the kids home and call the cops then. You don't sit there and torment them and tell them you're going to bash their skulls in with a hammer." The kids face felony charges of second degree burglary and second degree criminal mischief.