The Juvenile Court of DeKalb County adjudicated 16-year-old E. C. delinquent based upon an act that would have constituted the crime of obstruction of a law enforcement officer, OCGA § 16-10-24 a, if committed by an adult. E. C. appeals, contending that the evidence presented was insufficient to support an adjudication of delinquency based upon obstruction. Finding no error, we affirm.In considering the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a juvenile court adjudication of delinquency, we apply the same standard of review that is used in any criminal case by construing the evidence in favor of the adjudication to determine if a rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that the juvenile committed the acts charged. In the instant case, we must construe the testimony of the arresting officer, the only witness at the hearing, in favor of the delinquency adjudications.Citation and punctuation omitted. In the Interest of J. T. , 239 Ga. App. 756, 757 521 SE2d 862 1999. Viewed in this light, the evidence showed that, on Monday, September 25, 2006, a uniformed DeKalb County police officer was on routine patrol in an area that had recently experienced a high rate of burglaries by juveniles. The officer’s commander had instructed him to look out for juveniles who were “skipping” school and, if he found any, to cite them for truancy and return them to school.1 According to the officer, local high school students were supposed to be in school by 8:30 a.m. that morning.
At 8:50 a.m., the officer observed a group of young men who appeared to be teenagers and were standing near the leasing office of an apartment complex. As soon as the officer approached them in his patrol car, the teenagers started walking in different directions; some of them walked in the opposite direction of a nearby high school. The officer got out of his patrol car and asked the teenagers to come over to him. According to the officer, he wanted to ask them some general questions so that he could determine whether they were truants. E. C. turned around and started to run away, however, and he kept running even when the officer told him to stop. Shortly thereafter, another officer arrived on the scene, and he caught and detained E. C. The officers then determined that E. C. was 16 years old.
