Ungheni City Hall made public — through a video post — a case that is minor as a deed but carries a moral the institution wanted heard. On the evening of 9 May, around 21.35, at the bus stop on Bernardazzi Street 10, two minors allegedly smashed a surveillance camera. After investigations and footage analysis, City Hall says, the two were identified, and the materials were sent to the Police Inspectorate.
sooner or later, everyone must pay for the irresponsibility and behaviour they show Ungheni City Hall
The institution’s message is one of accountability — „let’s take care of our town”, since every asset is built „with our money too”. Beyond the cautionary tone, however, lies a very concrete question that few parents ask themselves in time: if your own child damages public property, who actually settles the bill? The law’s answer is clearer than it seems — and it falls, for the most part, on the adult’s shoulders.
Important from the outset — „identified” does not mean „convicted”. The case is only with the police, and the two remain, until a decision, minors covered by the presumption of innocence. That is why we do not publish their names and do not reproduce the footage that could make them recognisable.
Damaging property — an offence, not a crime
The first uncertainty is how „serious” the deed is in the eyes of the law. The intentional destruction or damaging of someone else’s property is treated by the Contravention Code (art. 104) — an offence, punishable by a fine of 18 to 36 conventional units, that is 900–1,800 lei (one conventional unit is worth 50 lei), or 20–40 hours of community work.
It would become a crime (art. 197 of the Criminal Code) only if the damage reached „large proportions” — a threshold tied to the average wage in the economy. As of 2026, that threshold exceeds 348,000 lei. A bus-stop surveillance camera is obviously far cheaper, so the discussion stays in the realm of an offence, not a criminal file.
From what age the child is liable
This is where age comes in, and the rule surprises many. For damaging property (art. 104), a minor is personally liable only from 16. Under 16, the child cannot be sanctioned for an offence — the law takes the case out of the fine’s reach and sends it to the local public authority for minors’ affairs, which may apply educational measures.
In other words, if the two are over 16, each may receive the 900–1,800 lei fine; if they are younger, the fine does not apply to them — but that does not mean the deed comes free. Because the big bill is not the fine, but the damage itself.
Who pays for the camera
Repairing the damaged item falls under civil liability, and that does not depend on the age at which the child would be liable for an offence. The Civil Code is explicit. For a child under 14, the damage is repaired directly by the parents (art. 2008), who are released only if they prove they were not at fault in supervision or education. For a teenager aged 14–18, they answer first themselves (art. 2009); but since a minor rarely has „sufficient assets or income”, the damage falls, subsidiarily, on the parents all the same. And repair is done either in kind — that is, fitting a new camera — or by paying its value.
There is one more link, easy to forget. Regardless of what befalls the child, the parent can be fined directly as well, for failing the duty of supervision that led to a socially dangerous act — between 450 and 900 lei (art. 63 of the Contravention Code). In short: for a camera smashed by a minor, the family may pay twice — once for the repair, once for the supervision fine.
„With our money”
This is precisely where the final part of City Hall’s message takes on meaning. A bus-stop camera is not someone’s private possession, but public infrastructure, paid for from the local budget — that is, from the money of all Ungheni residents. When it is destroyed, the loss is the community’s, even if, legally, the bill returns to the family of the one who broke it.
This is not the first such appeal from local authorities. Last week we also wrote about minors on motorcycles through the district’s villages, where, likewise, the fine first seeks out the adult. The common thread is the same — responsibility for what children do on the road or in town remains, before the law, with the parents.
What cannot yet be said, since it belongs to the case and not to the law, is the exact classification the police will give and the value at which the camera will be assessed. These are the remit of the Police Inspectorate and of City Hall, as the owner of the asset.