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

reason.com

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

#711

Post by cbsmith »

Thlom wrote: post #708
cbsmith wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're reading a lot into autoexec's comments that aren't actually there (maybe it's from this ProPublica story that I can't find a reference to?). There was no comment about how it was reasonable to make the phone call, and there's specific criticism of the police conduct... All they said was that at the point CPS got involved, it's entirely possible that CPS did their job exactly as they should have. I would point…

>There was no comment about how it was reasonable to make the phone call, and there's specific criticism of the police conduct... All they said was that at the point CPS got involved, it's entirely possible that CPS did their job exactly as they should have. I would suspect the first step of any investigation would be to find out why they are investigating and not just set everything in motion based on a vague report…

I don't think this line of reasoning goes where you think it goes...

One could imagine that is how the investigation proceeded.

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

#712

Post by cbsmith »

emodendroket wrote: post #668
cbsmith wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait... I think you've got cause & effect backwards here. The police arrested the mom, not CPS. There was no interaction between the family and CPS prior to the arrest. The arrest is what brings CPS in to the picture. Just by virtue of arresting a parent, CPS should to get involved, because arresting the parent potentially puts the kids at risk... and then you double down on that because they've been arrested for end…

What I’m objecting to is the imposition of the “no unsupervised time with your children” rule, which, to my mind, is a punishment just as much as a precaution.

> What I’m objecting to is the imposition of the “no unsupervised time with your children” rule, which, to my mind, is a punishment just as much as a precaution.

Which is another way of saying that it is just as much a precaution as it is a punishment.

CPS responsibilities are to the children and their safety. The police & courts deal with the parents, collect any evidence, mete out any punishment, etc.

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

#713

Post by notch656a »

giantg2 wrote: post #650
notch656a wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting children in a foster home is a higher legal barrier than a voluntary "Safety plan." Phrasing this as alternative is disingenuous. It's safe to assume if that legal barrier was actually met they would have put them in a foster home as staying with the parents would be too unsafe. The parents got bluffed by tyrants. Personally I would never open the door to, nor sign any document, nor speak with CPS outside of…

But are judges better? https://www.yahoo.com/news/atlanta-judge-chews-lawyer-missed...

I'm not saying they're better, but would you rather just let it end with CPS and not get a hearing? To get a kid taken basically is going to require your consent or the holes lining up in the swiss cheese. I want as many layers in that swiss cheese as possible if the allegations against me are false.

Stuff like due process is what our forefathers died to at least ostensibly give us.

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

#714

Post by viridian »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #526
pessimizer wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, if you're young, black, male, and running around Chicago I did this without the drugs and guns part, and had guns drawn on me three times growing up in Chicago for the crime of walking. If I had been killed, I'm sure it would have been coded in a way for you not to see it as a problem.

My point is exactly that your experience is very unusual

No, his experience isn't necessarily very unusual. You are comparing apples (deaths) and oranges (guns drawn) here. I'm willing to bet an order of magnitude of people more have had the police draw on them vs. shoot them. No one in my family has been killed by the police, but I, my mother, and my uncle have all certainly been drawn on.

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

#715

Post by mig39 »

Markoff wrote: post #697
mig39 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

To be clear, he doesn't bark at people walking by the house. He barks at people who walk up the driveway, open the gate, and walk towards the house. He didn't bark until the guy was a meter or two away from the house.

That's his job.

He was left alone in the house for an hour. I have video surveillance showing the neighbour skulking around on my property.

Sorry, this is the reason we got a dog.

If the neighbour had a problem with the dog barking, he could have asked me "hey, when I come on your property and walk around your house, why does the dog bark?"

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

#716

Post by yencabulator »

sschueller wrote: post #247
beardyw wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US has much greater freedoms than Europe Does it? I can't see this happening in Europe. What freedoms stand out?

Like drinking in public with an open container of alcohol.

I'm not sure which way you intended that. Rest assured, there's a lot of open air boozing in Northern Europe in the summertime.

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

#717

Post by egberts1 »

I walked 7 miles to school every day, both ways, some uphills, some downhills, sometimes to karate, sometime barefooted, and sometimes in the snow … literally.

Now, I am fearless.

We don’t need to be scaring our kids into cowardly submission if they are trained in common sense and defensive protection.

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

#718

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

viridian wrote: post #714
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is exactly that your experience is very unusual

No, his experience isn't necessarily very unusual. You are comparing apples (deaths) and oranges (guns drawn) here. I'm willing to bet an order of magnitude of people more have had the police draw on them vs. shoot them. No one in my family has been killed by the police, but I, my mother, and my uncle have all certainly been drawn on.

I think you're making the argument that GP's experience isn't necessarily unusual conditional on being black, male, etc.. It's not the point that I was making. I was making the point that GP's experience is unusual for people in general, or for HNers in general.

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

#719

Post by obscurette »

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.

Yes, I don't want to be this one parent. But it's many orders of magnitude more likely that I handicap my kids if I don't let my kids explore the world with (reasonable) freedom.

PS. I'm a father of three girls and live in Europe. Kids here navigate on their own with public transport if needed between home/school/etc since the age of 6.

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

#720

Post by viridian »

dredmorbius wrote: post #433

Let's look at the outcome of this case: After two weeks, child services closed Wallace's case, finding the complaint was unfounded. Keep in mind that Reason.com is essentially an anti-government institution, for which such stories, often presented with an extreme slant or selective take on facts, are catnip. HN's own archives will show many instances of similar articles: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=reason.…

Consider reading the article before you spend multiple paragraphs criticizing the source, because the actual outcome was that Heather Wallace is now barred from her career field and is considered a danger to children.

Also, for all of your hand wringing over the source, you failed to realize that this is original piece by Lenore Skenazy, probably the most well known advocate for the free range kids movement, and she has not only contributed to Reason, but also the NY Times, WaPo, the WSJ, NPR, and PBS, among others.

Blindly criticizing a source without either reading the damn article or caring about whether the piece was from an original source is incredibly intellectually lazy.

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