"I know I want that dropped though, the charges. Because my son didn't have nothing to do with that."
The police say the boy exploded a chemical bomb on his next door neighbor's porch. When the neighbor came out to investigate, police say the boy made an obscene gesture.
The boy's brother says it was a teenager who made the chemical bomb, the type that's been cropping up in videos on the Internet. The chemical mixture causes a plastic bottle to swell and explode, but there's no flame.
The boy's mother says her son was just picked from the crowd.
The boy is now facing criminal charges and many neighbors don't have a problem with that. They say children in the neighborhood have gotten out of control.
One neighbor, David Hunt, says, "I think that's kind of crazy, but that's just this neighborhood now. The kids around here are crazier than heck. They're not afraid to come up and scare older people, and try to harass them. It's not really good around here."
Yet another neighbor told Action News, "He does need to be taught that that is wrong. I don't know if he needs to go to jail for it, but he do4es need to be taught that that is wrong and he needs to be accountable in some way."
That will be up to a judge to decide if the boy is found guilty. For now, he's staying with another relative, and his mother says he won't be allowed to hang out with the other kids involved.
"I'm just keeping him in the house, and keeping him away from the bad crowd so he won't get in trouble again."
His mother says the boy has never been in trouble with the law before. If that's the case, the police say he'll probably get nothing more than probation and court ordered counseling.