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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

#281

Post by klipt »

bhelkey wrote: post #243
klipt wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. >> the Reasonable Childhood Independence law that Texas passed in 2021 ... clarifies that parents are allowed to let their kids engage in independent activities as long as they aren't putting them in serious, likely danger. The police did not enforce…

> Unfortunately, HB567 amended only family law, not criminal law. This meant the cops were still free to punish Wallace.

Legislators failed to change the criminal law.

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

#282

Post by dbrowne »

I can only imagine the horrific consequences if she were Black. 1) Children would have probably been placed in foster care regardless of the father's presence. 2) would have probably been tased or shot because she would have rightfully mouthed offed and "resisted". 3)Would have been portrayed as a delinquent parent by the media.

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

#283

Post by vlunkr »

pdonis wrote: post #198
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…

> Let's quickly drop the idea that this is the fault of nosey neighbors No, let's not. According to the article, the neighbor who called the cops asked the boy where he lived, "verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless". Excuse me? What decent neighbor calls the cops on a neighbor's kid walking just down the street from his own house? I agree the law in question shouldn't even be on…

> the law in question shouldn't even be on the books in the first place

Based on the article, it's not clear that they are breaking any law, and in fact Texas passed the Reasonable Childhood Independence law that should allow this. Lots of people are to blame here, but the cops escalated by arresting her on a flimsy basis. The incident could have stopped there.

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

#284

Post by rrauenza »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #255
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…

Youtube keeps suggesting https://www.youtube.com/@AuditTheAudit to me. In many of the videos the officers just make up what they think the law is. Just a warning, more than a few of the videos on AuditTheAudit are infuriating due to the level of arrogance, incompetence, negligence, and abuse of authority displayed. But, it is nice that there is a way to air this dirty laundry in public. As GI Joe says, "Knowing is ha…

That is a really revealing youtube channel. I can't watch too much of it because it just makes me want to pull my hair out.

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

#285

Post by shswkna »

Sakos wrote: post #270
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been constantly annoyed for 20 years by Fortune 250 corporate IT policies, I see this slightly differently. All the confusing, contradictory, usually-non-specific-yet-sometimes-wildly-specific polices the IT department decrees come from some nice-sounding reason, usually from some white paper or consultant, or just some major screwup that caused embarrassment. But, like ISO9000 and SOX and all the…

Oh please, other countries manage to not have this kind of nonsense. If a system is this dysfunctional and destructive, it's intentional.

I tend to agree. Its a departure from the common sense, middle ground. This is symptomatic in American culture and politics, at least from what can be observed from afar.

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

#286

Post by muwtyhg »

ALittleLight wrote: post #276
bhelkey wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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.

They verified where the child lived, which was just down the block, and still proceeded to call the police instead of... escorting the kid home?

> 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.

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

#287

Post by rmetzler »

leephillips wrote: post #201
rmetzler wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I read online (and I can be very wrong) people are trained for 3 to 6 months in the US and then they are cops. It’s a least 2.5 years, 3 years, or 5 years (depending on your career choice) for police officers in Germany.

I also hear that in Germany you actually require people to know how to drive before you give them licenses. We could learn a few things from you. Cops in the US frequently shoot themselves in the foot, shoot blindly into buildings, etc. Yes, hordes of untrained armed police with emotional problems are a big issue in the US. They are empowered by the knowledge that the legal system will almost never hold them accounta…

Wait, how do you get a drivers license in the US? Do you have a minimum of required training, a theoretical and a practical test?

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

#288

Post by iceburgcrm »

beaned wrote: post #49
SirensOfTitan wrote: post #14

Vaguely relevant, from Peter Grey's book "Free to Learn": > In our culture today, parents and other adults overprotect children from possible dangers in play. We seriously underestimate children’s ability to take care of themselves and make good judgments [...] Our underestimation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—by depriving children of freedom, we deprive them of the opportunities they need to learn how to take c…

Nobody wants to be the one parent out of a thousand who has their kid scooped up off the street because they were letting their kid explore and be free. Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted, this comment isn't a judgment on anyone or promoting any type of child-rearing philosophy. It's just an obvious truth. Nobody wants to be that parent, and that obviously influences behavior.

The odds of winning the lottery are better. The odds would be one in millions for getting scooped off the street by a random person and slightly more common if the kidnapper happened to be a parent.

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

#289

Post by moreati »

steelframe wrote: post #267
z9znz wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also suburban Waco, Texas. That's not exactly the epicenter of education in the US, much less even in Texas. Ironically, more rural Texas regions tend to ha√e more independent kids; after all, you'll see 10 year old kids driving the family truck on farms and ranches.

> more rural Texas regions tend to ha√e more independent kids Genuinely curious. How did you manage to type '√' rather than 'v'? It this a keyboard or locale issue?

Not OP, speculating. On a Mac option + v types a √, which is a fairly easy typo.

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

#290

Post by gspencley »

cbsmith wrote: post #236
fluidcruft wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPS investigated and cleared them and then dropped the case. It's the cops and DA who kept going.

...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.

Investigate, absolutely. The cops need to do that as well. However, as someone else pointed out "Child services had the family agree to a safety plan" is not investigating. That's taking action and making a threat: "if you don't agree to this we'll take you to court and let a judge sort it out at your expense."
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