Sorry, Chief Prock. Parents can’t always know where their kids are | Opinion

Myrtle Beach Police Chief Amy Prock says, “Parents and guardians have a duty to know where their children are, who they are with, and what they are doing. Accountability starts at home.”

But it’s the guns, not the parents.

I have two kids. They are making their way through college, hopefully launching themselves into successful careers and lives in which they find their purpose and fulfill it.

I don’t always know where they are.

There were plenty of times I didn’t know where they were during their teen years as well. It was impossible to always know.

That’s despite my wife and I loving them and being attentive and demanding contact information from the parents of friends they wanted to hang with.

That’s despite my wife and I providing an intact home all their lives.

My wife and I are educators and journalists who can cite, chapter and verse, the challenges facing teenagers in the home, in school and on the streets.

And there were still times we didn’t know where they were.

Every honest parent would say the same. Besides, it was healthier for them that we didn’t know. Their development would be stunted if we didn’t give them space to explore the world around them without us.

That’s why Chief Prock’s words struck me the other day. They came near the end of a more than eight-minute video presentation about what Myrtle Beach police believe precipitated the April 26 incident on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach during which 18-year-old Jerrius Davis shot into a crowd and Officer Brandon O’Rourke shot Davis in response.

Prock was likely speaking from a place of frustration that one of her officers had killed a teenager, even if that shooting was justified. (Based on police dash cam video released last week, I think it was, though serious questions remain.) It was a tragedy for Jerrius Davis’ family. I know police officers who have shot people. It’s an act that changes them forever, too.

Though parents are responsible for their children, Prock is asking the impossible. It’s akin to demanding that police officers be on hand to prevent every crime.

Teenagers have explored their surroundings since the beginning of time, sometimes with a parent’s permission, sometimes not. Most of the time, they make it home safely without having caused any damage and face any potential consequences out of the public’s eye.

Sometimes, they end up like New York teenager Brittanee Drexel who became one of Myrtle Beach’s most infamous missing person’s case, which wasn’t solved for more than a decade. Drexel was snatched off the sidewalk by a sexual predator.

And sometimes they end up like Davis, endangering not only themselves, but others.

Teenagers are often impulsive, particularly teenage boys. It’s in their DNA and their brain development. They, frankly, do stupid things. I did stupid things when I was a boy.

Fortunately, for me and others, I never had a gun during my impulsive stage.

This impulsiveness will always be with us as long as there are teenagers. But the guns don’t have to be.

This story was originally published June 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Sorry, Chief Prock. Parents can’t always know where their kids are | Opinion."