Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

reason.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 763 posts

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#31

Post by mlindner »

pavon wrote: post #11
kurisufag wrote: post #3

>A woman one block away had called the cops to report a boy walking outside alone. That lady had actually asked Aiden where he lived, verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless. The cops picked up Aiden on his own block. this is the real problem here. who in their right mind calls the cops on a kid walking around his own neighborhood?

There will always be people who overreact and call the police for inappropriate reasons. That isn't the problem. The problem is that the police, and then the DA, chose to make this a criminal matter. Either of them could and should have dismissed the issue after verifying that the child was not being put into a harmful environment.

Correct! There's a lot of crazy people out in the world who'll call the cops for all manner of things. The correct response would have been to ignore the call following a couple questions by the 911 operator. "Is the child in danger in any way?" the response would be "No." and then hang up on them.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#32

Post by CodeMage »

kurisufag wrote: post #3

>A woman one block away had called the cops to report a boy walking outside alone. That lady had actually asked Aiden where he lived, verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless. The cops picked up Aiden on his own block. this is the real problem here. who in their right mind calls the cops on a kid walking around his own neighborhood?

Reminds me of the time my son finally gathered the confidence to take the training wheels off his bike and learn to ride it without them. My wife and I were walking, and he was on his bike, and he was so happy and pumped about his achievement, that he asked to ride farther away, out of our sight.

Now, this is a peaceful suburban neighborhood we're talking about, and we're on a stretch between his school and a park near our home. He's riding his bike on the sidewalk, and he's being careful about it.

Off he goes, and the two of us stroll peacefully until we see him stopped, with an old lady talking to him. He wasn't wearing his biking helmet that day, and we had to endure a lecture about it and veiled threats -- "I could have called CPS, you know" -- and smile politely all the way to avoid escalating.

Somewhere along the way, our society blurred the line between "stepping in to prevent child abuse" and "thinking you're entitled to being hostile and sanctimonious to other parents".

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#33

Post by josefresco »

kurisufag wrote: post #3

>A woman one block away had called the cops to report a boy walking outside alone. That lady had actually asked Aiden where he lived, verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless. The cops picked up Aiden on his own block. this is the real problem here. who in their right mind calls the cops on a kid walking around his own neighborhood?

My neighbor (not old) threatened to call the police on my 12 year old daughter because she didn't stop for him... to scold her. On the surface he's a reasonable, responsible adult but for some reason was/is triggered by neighborhood kids simply "having fun". People can be strange.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#34

Post by warent »

Note she also has a GoFundMe to help cover her legal expenses to right this wrong. It's a pretty severe miscarriage of justice that has grievously altered this innocent woman's life going into a recession.

Please consider donating what you can: https://www.gofundme.com/f/restore-money-lost-after-wrongful...

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#36

Post by justsomehnguy »

kurisufag wrote: post #3

>A woman one block away had called the cops to report a boy walking outside alone. That lady had actually asked Aiden where he lived, verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless. The cops picked up Aiden on his own block. this is the real problem here. who in their right mind calls the cops on a kid walking around his own neighborhood?

> who in their right mind calls the cops on a kid walking around his own neighborhood?

This really depends on your life experience.

For some this is no big deal. For some this means the parents are in a drunken/drug stupor. For some taking care of a kid means being instantly labeled as a pedo by parents, police and neighbours.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#37

Post by rubyfan »

kurisufag wrote: post #3

>A woman one block away had called the cops to report a boy walking outside alone. That lady had actually asked Aiden where he lived, verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless. The cops picked up Aiden on his own block. this is the real problem here. who in their right mind calls the cops on a kid walking around his own neighborhood?

It sounds like the cop had the discretion and chose to arrest her after she answered a question negatively. This seems to be another big part of the problem.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#38

Post by nineplay »

> As they stood on her porch, the officers told Wallace that her son could have been kidnapped and sex trafficked. "'You don't see much sex trafficking where you are, but where I patrol in downtown Waco, we do,'" said one of the cops, according to Wallace

> "I still didn't know it was illegal and I said, 'I don't know,'" says Wallace. "That's when the cop replied, 'Okay, I'm going to have to arrest you.'"

Let's quickly drop the idea that this is the fault of nosey neighbors, helicopter parents, soccer moms, or "Karens". This is 100% a justice department problem and anyone from the police to the district attorney could have nipped this nonsense in the bud.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#39

Post by giarc »

falcolas wrote: post #5
kurisufag wrote: post #3

>A woman one block away had called the cops to report a boy walking outside alone. That lady had actually asked Aiden where he lived, verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless. The cops picked up Aiden on his own block. this is the real problem here. who in their right mind calls the cops on a kid walking around his own neighborhood?

IMO, too many people took the wrong lessons from being ignored as children themselves, and they swung too hard into "Watch over your children 24/7 or you're hurting your children."

Doesn't help that every few months a certain political party screams about a 'caravan' of migrants coming to the borders with the sole purpose of causing crime.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#40

Post by mlindner »

josefresco wrote: post #8

I'm not sure (correct me if I'm wrong) but doesn't the district attorney have the ability to drop the charges or not pursue the case? If CPS dropped the case, why didn't the DA?

The DA's role to win as many cases as they can. They only drop cases they don't think they can win.

Threatening people with charges if they don't take plea deals is an easy way for them to win. That's what led to a news item last year of some immigrant truck driver getting over 100 years in prison (plus mandatory minimums) because he didn't take a plea deal after his breaks failed and he hit a car and killed some people accidentally.

Post reply on HN