For parents here that want to see local US laws:
Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
121–130 of 763 posts
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#122>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 ne…
> smile politely all the way to avoid escalating.
That attitude, while perhaps more comfortable in some ways, just enables the sort of behaviour you encountered, and apparently disliked, from that woman.
A blunt response like, "Fuck off. Don't talk to my son.", followed by walking away from her, may have been harsher and not particularly polite, but perhaps it'd cause a person like her to avoid such meddling in the future.
Depending on where you are, she might have gone decades without any kind of resistance to her behaviour.
Too much politeness can be worse than none at all.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#123The attitudes on childhood independence vary wildly based on density and penetration of car culture.
For example: I have a neighbor whose 10 year old rides the subway, alone, to and from school. This includes some amount of walking on either side -- something close to half a mile in aggregate on google maps.
In the suburb where I grew up, parents are now required to meet their middle school children at the bus stop or arrange for alternative transportation.
In middle school, in the same community, which hasn't changed much, I rode my bike several miles. So this is a recent change. AFAICT it's because of some pedestrian fatalities and injuries a few years back.
Raising children in a car-dependent suburb seems like a good way to set them up for a few years of stunted adulthood while they learn basic "how to operate without an adult literally physically present" skills... I'd like to move to the suburbs so I can have a nicer house and a yard, but I don't think I want to subject my children to that environment.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#124In my twice-the-size European city, kids walk twice that distance to school and back home again, alone. Every. Single. Day. If this place isn't safe enough for kids to walk by themselves, maybe the question should be raised whether the police and municipal government really is doing their job the way they're supposed to.
The irony is one of the officers claimed the boy could have been kidnapped or taken into a sex trafficking ring. And their solution is to arrest the mom, not to take care of the kidnapping or sex trafficking.
See, with rugged individualism the consumer needs to be on the watch for the brands that might kill them and just vote with their wallet. Why would we regulate something when the free market will do the regulating?
This parent was not exercising their responsibility as an individual to watch out for anything and everything that might hurt their child, in the US that is illegal because the free market ideology rules all.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#125As a Canadian this is like a story from some 3rd world country. I remember frequently walking to school that distance as a kid. It wasn't abnormal nor dangerous. That it would be "illegal" is some crazy stuff.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#126Police just power tripping as usual. I wonder why they don't name and shame the officers - clearly these are the people doing wrong and should be removed from their positions.
The local DA is the person to look to here. Cops don't persecute cases. Clearly the cops started this stupid ball rolling, but anyone at the local attorneys office could have just chosen not to persecute. Instead they offered the plea deal.
The blame is on the DA and the cops. Even if the DA had dropped the charges, the cops still kidnapped the mother and traumatized the children.
And sure, the ideal DA would have charged the cops for the kidnapping and child abuse. But we're quite far from reforming the system so that cops are actually bound by the law, and focusing blame on both is needed to move us there.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#127> Waco, Texas What? If this draconian policy is happening in Texas, the land of the free, can I assume it's even worse in the rest of North America? I hope Texans are up-in-arms about this government overreach.
I read it as probably sarcasm, but no, in practice conservative state governments like the one in Texas like to micromanage your life (who to love, what you do with your body etc.)
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Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#128Realistically, it's a Texas cop. They talk a big game but when the rubber hits the road, they're going to be hiding.
The most accurate model is that this cop is terrified of the kidnapping gangs himself. Which is why he is unable to enforce anything against them.
Consequently he enforces where he can.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#129> 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
We need to name and shame this awful person who couldn't be bothered to walk the kid the half mile to his parents' house and have a human conversation. They need to be held accountable for the impact of their actions. Otherwise more people will do this.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#130I don't know... the story as written does sound really bad. My similarly-aged kids walk about half a mile to school by themselves, as do dozens of other children that live in my neighborhood, and it would be crazy to arrest parents for this.
But we're only hearing the mother's side of the story. The neighbor who called the cops, the actions of the police, it's possible they saw something that wasn't reported here. And something about this story sounds a little off to me. A kid is peacefully walking a half mile home, someone calls the cops, and the cops actually show up and intercept the kid before the kid gets home?
Perhaps the kid wasn't actually okay with walking home, perhaps the mom was kicking him out of the car as a punishment, perhaps the kid didn't know what to do and asked a neighbor for help, perhaps the kid told the police that he didn't feel safe with his mother, perhaps some other stuff happened that the mom wasn't willing to tell Reason about, perhaps the police made a judgement call based on interviewing the neighbors and child that the mother had behaved inappropriately here.
But maybe the story is completely accurate and this is just bad by the cops. So I hesitate to judge either way.