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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

#691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move to a sane state. I live in the midwest, in a smaller town. You still see kids playing in the neighborhood and parks and running around. Kids walk and bike to school. Nobody would call the cops over a kid walking by himself unless he looked to be lost or in distress.

I live in suburban Ohio and had the same thing happen to my family. My son was playing by himself in the front yard. Someone called the cops, they walked him to my door and they lectured me about "watching" my kid.

It’s a shame you can’t press charges on or sue that person for attempted child abduction. Sure, they took the child to your front door, but you didn’t give them permission to do that. They are not the guardian and they had to trespass to do so.

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

#692
post #511
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son is expected to walk to and from school without parental support once he starts kindergarten. We don't live in the states.

Switzerland ? One of the places that is somewhat normal...

Some of my kids 7yo classmates already walk to school ~1km in Prague by themselves in pairs, I guess alone it would be boring, personally I don't mind having at least morning walk to/from school since for the rest of the day I may sit next to desk, asked my kids if he wants to go by himself, he said no, but I guess when I will walk my younger daughter they can go back home together. Only thing I am really affraid is them crossing the road, I am certainly not affraid about anyone kidnapping them or other nonsense.

Recently when going by tram with kids somewhere I saw ~8-9yo girl travelling by herself seeing her confused started to cry, so I approached her, she said she is going wrong direction, told her to get off with us and then just directed her to right tram in different direction and went with my kids own way. Told her it's not big deal, she just lost few minutes and it can happen anyone to confuse tram numbers. Before COVID I used to approach tourists going in direction to my home since many of them went wrong direction, but surprisingly often I am met with German tourists who like riding trams whole line back and forth, I've had this hobby with Beijing subway lines when I lived there.

Actually my father (from small 40K town) came to visit just yesterday and he also took tram in wrong direction, realized it after 3 stops, but had problem to get back since there was no stop in opposite direction nearby, which happens with some stops, usually you just need to cross the road/tracks.

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

#693
post #523
post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland ? One of the places that is somewhat normal...

actually this is more than normal in all 3rd world countries. Starting from 6-7 years most kids walk to/from school on their own.

I'd go even that far that 7-9 yo kids in Vietnam, Laos or Thailand already ride motorbike (scooter) at that age, I crashed because of them once in Laos (on the way to Plain of jars), just suddenly stopped in front of me on dusty road, I stopped as well, but sadly I had passenger behind me who balanced in other direction, so we flipped to side when bike slipped a bit.

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

#695

Because of all of these news of arrests, cops shooting someone unarmed, or people getting easily labelled as felons or sex offenders, US has become synonymous with "trigger-happy" (literally & figuratively) for me. Are people (and specifically cops) in the US really that quick to judge? Does it depend on the state? Or do these cases make the news exactly because of how outrageous and rare they are?

>Or do these cases make the news exactly because of how outrageous and rare they are?

It's that. I've lived in the USA my whole life in a big city and don't ever think about this stuff except when I'm online. There have been shooting instances in my city, but they're rare enough that I've never been around for them, so again I only think about them when online. The only time I physically feared (a little bit) for my safety was the height of the BLM protests when folks started smashing storefronts in my neighborhood. But that can happen in any country, obviously, and is not especially worse in the USA as far as I know.

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

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I have visited nurseries that don't let kids go out to the playground when it rains... in the UK! I suspect some of my child classmates were Gremlins.

To be fair I have nothing against this especially in kindergarten's muddy garden, everything will be completely dirty and kids wet, some of them may not have change and even in free time I am not really fan of playing outside in rain, everything is slipper, easy to fall down and make yourself dirty or hurt yourself when climbing on slippery stuff. I don't mind if they go for walk in waterproof stuff in rain.

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

#697
post #64

>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?

I had neighbour, who lives across the street, call the police because my dog barked when he walked up my driveway. We weren't home at the time. He called because there was "an animal in distress." We pulled into the driveway just as an RCMP officer was arriving "on the scene." She entered the house with us, petted the dog, and rolled her eyes. And "closed the file." The dog was doing its job. Asshole neighbours (even…

I am with your neighbor, I hate dogs left alone which annoy all neighbors with constant barking, while their owner doesn't have to listen to it. It's less of an problem in the house, but huge problem in residential apartment building, so obviously you call cops to annoy neighbor to force him to do soemthing about it by police harassing him, not that because you would genuinely think there is animal in distress. If your dog barks at everyone passing around your house, there is something wrong with your dog and you raising it. If you can't take care of dog and raise it properly, don't get one.

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

#698
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.

I think the correct word for adults would be abducted.

https://blog.ipleaders.in/difference-between-abduction-and-k...

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

#699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also be kidnapped as an adult.

I think the correct word for adults would be abducted. https://blog.ipleaders.in/difference-between-abduction-and-k...

Huh TIL.

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

#700
post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you adapted it for software, it's almost the same as saying "don't focus too much on the happy path, make sure you limit the blast radius for the failures cases", which just sounds like sensible advice. You really have to take the adversarial mindset when thinking about large scale systems like this, to make sense of how they can break.

Thinking about the failure modes is the default mindset of a traditional engineer. Unfortunately software engineers in general are entirely too focused on the happy path and nothing else.

Focusing on anything besides the happy path requires the approval and support to do so from other teams and their respective management and QA.

No, they'd rather not coordinate any of that and just play the blame game.

Many workplaces employing software engineers are actively hostile towards any kind of engineering. I have a very hard time believing anyone writing code is sloppy on purpose. Incentives are often very misaligned. These are pretty much always organizational problems.

Instead of immediately blaming software engineers, you should consider questioning whether it ever makes sense to have non-technical leadership in charge of them. Most places where "real" engineering is done don't have idiots at the wheel.

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