7-year-old used for shoplifting

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) -- A mother and grandmother allegedly used their 7-year-old to help them shoplift.

"A 7-year-old, unbelieveable that someone would use a 7-year-old to shoplift," Pete Dwyer of West Hartford said.

Police say they arrested a mother and a grandmother for allegedly shoplifting from Shop Rite and using their 7-year-old to do it.

25-year-old Amanada Nighton and her mother, 49-year-old Nellie Castro were arrested.

They allegedly shoplifted soaps and perfumes and other things and had the 7-year-old girl load up the cart and wheel it out of the store with her grandmother.

"The grandmother pushes her cart full of stolen items that the 7-year-old had placed in her direction, out the door where they are apprehended by store security," Lt. Stephen Estes of the West Hartford Police Dept. said.

"You are giving them the wrong message, telling them it's good when it's not. It's not right," Lizette Pedro of West Hartford said.

Believe it or not this happens more than you might think. Police say especially around the holidays it happens at the malls and strip malls. People go in and use their kids in all different kinds of ways to steal and shoplift from the stores. They say to keep one thing it mind -- it is a felony.

"It is used all over. There are many different ways they use children to commit their theft crimes," Lt. Estes said.

"Covering up for their parents or doing their dirty work, that's too much. Way too much," Danielle Lawrence of West Hartford said.

Danielle Lawrence is a child councilor and says even if the 7-year-old didn't know she was stealing, she did see her mother and grandmother handcuffed and taken away by police.

"Especially around the holidays, it is a time for families to be getting together, but often times families tear apart and start doing things out of the ordinary," Lawrence said.