Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by watwut » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

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…

This is 100% fault of CPS. Nosy neighborhood can dislike whatever he dislikes, it is fault of whoever administered policy.

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

#562

Post by beaned » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #419

beaned wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure of the statistics, but even so, it's something you have more control over than a lightning strike. Edit: at first glance I'm not sure the numbers are right... Google says: "Lightning damage in the U.S. [...] In 2021, there were a total of 11 fatalities and 69 injuries reported due to lighting in the United States." Also: "In the United States, an estimated 460,000 children are reported missing every year…

My uninformed guess is that a not insignificant percentage of "children reported missing" are teenagers who run away or stay out past the time they were supposed to return home. One must remember that about 11% of children are eligible for a drivers license.

Yes, this is why I updated the comment with the "abducted by strangers" statistic.

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

#563

Post by caseysoftware » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

cool_dude85 wrote: post #520

nearbuy wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck finding a libertarian that believes parents shouldn't have to feed their children. I think you've made a straw man argument.

It's a direct quote from Murray Rothbard. So that's one at least.

> It's a direct quote from Murray Rothbard. So that's one at least.

Ugh. That sounds ugly. Which part is the quote?

I assume not the "Well, I personally believe.." part but don't see any quotation marks so hard to tell.

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

#564

Post by watwut » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

fluidcruft wrote: post #314

handoflixue wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of "Child services had the family agree to a safety plan" makes you feel that CPS is blameless here? It seems like they wasted two weeks of this family's time and added a ton of unnecessary stress, before even figuring out if the complaint was warranted. That seems deeply dysfunctional, and violently at odds with "innocent until proven guilty"

That was only while they investigated (which I'm fine with). It's annoying but it's NOT a CPS horror story.

I mean, it is. It makes family life significantly harder for period of time. It does matter.

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

#565

Post by agentwiggles » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 9:53 PM UTC

hn_user2 wrote: post #309

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It puts neighbors in a bad situation. Yesterday there was a kid, probably about eight years old, outside my house wandering around by himself, yelling at passing cars. There are lots of kids in my neighborhood and I'm accustomed to them being loud when they're out playing but this kid was alone, going out into the road, and just acting a bit weird. It wasn't a kid I knew so I couldn't call the parents but calling the…

Weird time to be alive when we are afraid to get within 10 feet of a kid a yell "HEY KID, GET OUT OF THE ROAD!". And yet, totally understand.

Not too long ago, my son was riding his bike down the street (which he's not supposed to do, he's supposed to stay on the sidewalk).

A driver yelled at him, something fairly vulgar like "get out of the fucking road, asshole!"

He came home and reported this to me. I was more gentle obviously, and told him that the guy wasn't very nice for swearing at him.

But honestly, I don't blame the guy, and I'm happy he yelled at him. I'm sure he'll remember that incident next time he's cruising down the middle of the road.

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

#566

Post by handoflixue » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

cbsmith wrote: post #400

handoflixue wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> You can't just say the ends justify the means, without actually working out the price you're paying. I wasn't suggesting that the ends justify the means. I'm simply speaking to the realities of the situation. However, from an ends justifying the means perspective, if you're not going to investigate, there's little point in hearing the case, and more importantly in people making the call in the first place. "When an…

> Sure, there are horror stories about CPS being overzealous, but this isn't one of those stories.

The parents were forced in to two weeks of supervision, requiring another adult around them 24/7. The innocent parents, who had not actually done anything wrong.

How is that not "overzealous"?

> I don't much like the "family safety plans", but it's a huge leap from there to 24/7 monitoring...

"Wallace and her husband could not be alone with their kids for even a second."

That sure sounds like 24/7 monitoring, even if it's not the government doing it.

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

#567

Post by randomdata » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 9:58 PM UTC

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…

> What decent neighbor calls the cops on a neighbor's kid walking just down the street from his own house?

Well, what decent neighbour isn't able to, at the very least, recognize his neighbors?

Maybe this child's parents have kept him locked in the closet, never seen by anyone before, until this one time he emerged unto the world and the police were called not because he was on the street, but because he's never been on the street before.

But more likely this person isn't a neighbor, at least not mentally.

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

#568

Post by necovek » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #378

catchnear4321 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But rain has no brain, it goes down the drain. Planning for nature and planning for failure aren’t exactly the same. And too much planning for failure when there are missed opportunities to plan for success, well, it leads to failure. If you drove it off the lot, an unrelated point is made.

I don't understand what you're saying, but nosy neighbors are as inevitable as the rain, both are entirely natural, and planning that assumes that either will ever disappear is already a failure.

The problem is not that the neighbour is nosy, but that they are making a dumb decision in spite of all visible evidence that nobody is in immediate danger.

So you are worried about seeing a neighbour's kid walking near the home alone? Talk to them to check they are ok. Accompany them home. Talk to parents about your concerns.

Do not call the police.

Note that I am in no way saying that they take grunt of the blame, but we put adult people in jails for doing dumb things (hey, that lion in the zoo looked really sad so I released it). When you can hurt someone, it is your responsibility to not be dumb.

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

#569

Post by elzbardico » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

zhivota wrote: post #559

This story is, in a nutshell, why me and my family have a plan to leave the US permanently within 2 years. We have a 4 year old and a 6 year old, and the possible futures we can see for ourselves and our children as they grow up are all dystopian to us. We can have freedom for them to play outside, if we only live in a rural area where my wife and kids will be the only non-white people around, where we will be bound…

"We can have freedom for them to play outside if we only live in a rural area (...) where the politics of everyone nearby will be opposite our own."

Have you ever considered the remote possibility of your politics being the reason behind the dystopian future you see arising around you?

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

#570

Post by randomdata » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 10:03 PM UTC

warinukraine wrote: post #515

sandos wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of funny. At what age does that stop being a possibility? At least in my country kids are kids until 18... so it would just as illegal let a 17-year old walk alone? He _could_ be kidnapped. Nobody can say it's impossible, however improbable!

You can also be kidnapped as an adult.

As the mother of this child found out.