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

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

#271

Post by Miner49er »

klipt wrote: post #170
nineplay wrote: post #38

> 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 quick…

Fundamentally it's the fault of the politicians who passed the law and the people who voted for them. If you don't want to be arrested for breaking a stupid law, vote for someone who will repeal it. Sure the police could in theory neglect to do their job which is enforcing the law but then they'd probably just get fired and replaced by police who did do their job.

> Fundamentally it's the fault of the politicians who passed the law and the people who voted for them.

But this way beyond what the law was intended for. It was passed in 1973, and there's no way that in 1973 lawmakers would think it should be used against this mother. Any law can be overzealously enforced.

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

#273

Post by I-Robot »

jakewins wrote: post #203
soco wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Switzerland you'd get called by the teacher if you don't let your kid walk by itself to kindergarten, because independence and learning and all.

We just moved to Sweden from Missouri; yesterday I picked up our 3yo from daycare and had this exchange: Kid: Teacher: Oh, by the way, he fell out of a small tree today, he was climbing and fell, so he may have a small bruise, just so you are aware Me: Oh ok. What tree? Teacher: Oh we took them to and grilled hot dogs today! Kid: I found a snail!

God! This is so AWESOME!!! Freedom

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

#274

Post by mosselman »

Holy shit. What did I just read?! Both the article and the comments in here describe some insane society that seems to come out of a dystopian nightmare. Neighbours calling the cops on each other for nothing and getting kids’ mothers arrested. Kids having to be supervised at all time. Police pretending like they never played outside when they were little. Wtf is wrong with the US?

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

#275

Post by zhdc1 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #43
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? I wish I knew. My children have had the cops called on them for playing in our front yard. I wish they could spend their afternoons climbing trees and playing in the grass like I did growing up, but there's a group of people who see children playing outside of direct parent supervision as a categorically dangerous activity. I'm alw…

My son is expected to walk to and from school without parental support once he starts kindergarten.

We don't live in the states.

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

#276

Post by ALittleLight »

bhelkey wrote: post #69
nineplay wrote: post #38

> 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 quick…

> Child services had the family agree to a safety plan, which meant Wallace and her husband could not be alone with their kids for even a second. Their mothers—the children's grandmothers—had to visit and trade-off overnight stays in order to guarantee the parents were constantly supervised. After two weeks, child services closed Wallace's case, finding the complaint was unfounded. This is the fault of the nosey neig…

It's not at all the fault of the nosy neighbor. The neighbor made a bad choice, but could plausibly have been motivated by good intentions. A young child walking alone may seem a cause for concern, and, perhaps all the neighbor wanted was to make sure the child was safe. I certainly see no evidence that the neighbor acted maliciously - some people are just legitimately unaware that the police are frequently comically evil.

It is absolutely the fault of the justice system, the police officers who abused their power to arrest a mother for no reason in front of her kids. They made a considered decision to teach her a lesson - they asked her if she had learned her lesson and when she didn't answer how they wanted they arrested her, handcuffed her in front of her children, and took her to prison.

It's also the fault of prosecutors and judges involved who overlooked and participated in this egregious abuse of the justice system. They are each responsible for stemming the overreaches of the police. We can't expect police to always make good decisions - they are people who go fight with criminals, not legal scholars, after all. That's partly why we have lawyers and judges involved - to stop overzealous policing. Of course, the prosecutors and judges involved failed miserably here, as they frequently do.

And of course child services are at fault too for their participation in this farce.

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

#277

Post by [deleted] »

handoflixue wrote: post #256
cbsmith wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and really, CPS does need to investigate. Yes, most often it's just a nosey neighbour, but every now and then those nosey neighbours are on to something, and while unpleasant for the families, missing that one case is the horror story they want to avoid.

You can't just say the ends justify the means, without actually working out the price you're paying. Otherwise, we should be OK with the government monitoring us 24/7 so that they don't miss any terrorists or child molesters. What proper Good Thinking citizen would possibly object to Big Brother watching them, after all? When an organization has the power to destroy families, I think we might want to require a standa…

[deleted]

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

#278

Post by insane_dreamer »

What a sad society we live in when kids can no longer do things that were perfectly normal for ourselves as kids because of some stupid neighbor and abusive police / CPS.

As someone with elementary school children, I'm much more worried about police/CPS overreach than kidnappers. All I can say, is TG I don't (and never will) live in Texas.

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

#279

Post by CodeMage »

willcipriano wrote: post #251
Spoom wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or calling them this time, immediately, and mentioning "belligerent parents" who "may be intoxicated". CPS starts up a file on you and now you have a lot of people looking into your house, kids, and family. Maybe the police see an easy arrest, or easy fines. Is it worth it to make a point here? Even at the potential cost of your or your family's freedom?

Play the same game. "I was concerned this woman was talking to my son, I couldn't hear her but the conversation seemed to be something about how she wanted him to come over to her house and how handsome he is, and then when I came into her eyeline she suddenly started ranting about helmets and CPS. I'm really confused about the whole thing officer, I assume she is just elderly but can you ask her to not talk to my so…

I'm sorry, are we honestly entertaining this idea? I try to write measured, patient replies on this site, but holy crap, it's hard sometimes.

Think about what you're proposing. You want me to drag my son, a kid who was little enough back then to still ride a bike with training wheels, into a tense argument between a weird lady, some scary-looking adults, and his parents who suddenly decided to lie through their teeth for some reason? Aside from what example I would be setting for him, how do you think a kid would handle a situation like that?

It wasn't enough that this lady already pissed on his parade, I'm supposed to compound it and put us all at risk of having him taken away because we were "negligent" and also falsely accused someone of being a pedo?

Have we forgotten that the #1 priority in this whole situation is the kid, not our pride or out desire to put someone in their place?

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

#280

Post by xeromal »

bhelkey wrote: post #69
nineplay wrote: post #38

> 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 quick…

> Child services had the family agree to a safety plan, which meant Wallace and her husband could not be alone with their kids for even a second. Their mothers—the children's grandmothers—had to visit and trade-off overnight stays in order to guarantee the parents were constantly supervised. After two weeks, child services closed Wallace's case, finding the complaint was unfounded. This is the fault of the nosey neig…

I agree that all 4 bear the blame but what that tells me is that this is a societal issue if that many bad decisions lined up
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