BOSTON, Massachusetts – A 14-year-old boy who flashed a gun while holding up a children’s lemonade stand last week in Boston was charged with two counts of armed robbery, the authorities said.

The crime outraged people across the city as it struck at a rite of summer for many children: opening a roadside lemonade stand, complete with powdery mixed drinks, plastic cups and a till full of cash

The boy also faces two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm, according to the Boston Police Department, which arrested him on June 12 in South Boston, the neighbourhood where the robbery occurred on June 10.

The authorities withheld the boy’s name because he is a minor.

The boy and an accomplice, who as at June 15 were still at large, had been casing a lemonade stand that two siblings, Juliette Byrne, 11, and David Byrne, 12, were running on a street corner after school, investigators and family members of the siblings said.

When the pair finally approached the siblings, they asked whether they accepted Apple Pay before grabbing a bright pink lockbox with cash in it, police said.

Tiffany Byrne, the aunt of the two children working the lemonade stand, said in an interview last week that about US$80 (S$103) was stolen.

One of the suspects then “displayed a black firearm in his waistband” before the pair fled, according to investigators, who released home security camera footage from the neighbourhood that showed the suspects wearing masks as they ran off with the lockbox.

Investigators were urging the public to share information about the second suspect in the armed robbery. NYTIMES

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

14-year-old charged with armed robbery of Boston lemonade stand