Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reason.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 763 posts

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

#111

Post by Enginerrrd »

emodendroket wrote: post #7
falcolas wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, too many people took the wrong lessons from being ignored as children themselves, and they swung too hard into "Watch over your children 24/7 or you're hurting your children."

They're watching the same newscasts and true-crime documentaries that are leading to perceptions of nonexistent "crime waves" with all the pathologies that come along.

Also don't forget the inflation of the term "sex trafficking" which has been twisted to apply to things that most people would not ordinarily apply it to, so that police departments can look better in the news. They bust a prostitution ring, and every prostitute gets counted as a "sex-trafficking victim" so they can spin it as this great liberation of people. Reading the headlines it sounds like Taken, but the reality is much less black and white.

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

#112

Post by wvenable »

> She obtained a lawyer, who told her that if she admitted guilt, she could participate in a pretrial diversion program that would close the case. On the other hand, if she went to trial and lost, she faced a minimum of two years behind bars and a maximum of 20. So she took the plea deal.

Nobody gets their day in court, it's just not worth it. I'd like to think a jury wouldn't convict but would you be willing to take that chance?

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

#113

Post by kickout »

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…

This, unfortunately, mimics my experiences. No idea when or how it happened, but it is noticeable

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

#114

Post by kashunstva »

warent wrote: post #34

Note she also has a GoFundMe to help cover her legal expenses to right this wrong. It's a pretty severe miscarriage of justice that has grievously altered this innocent woman's life going into a recession. Please consider donating what you can: https://www.gofundme.com/f/restore-money-lost-after-wrongful...

I’d even kick in a little to file a civil suit against the neighbour.

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

#115

Post by JumpCrisscross »

warent wrote: post #34

Note she also has a GoFundMe to help cover her legal expenses to right this wrong. It's a pretty severe miscarriage of justice that has grievously altered this innocent woman's life going into a recession. Please consider donating what you can: https://www.gofundme.com/f/restore-money-lost-after-wrongful...

> has a GoFundMe to help cover her legal expenses to right this wrong

To be clear, Wallace "is in debt after losing her job and paying for the lawyer and the diversion program" and "hopes to hire a lawyer to get her record expunged so that she can work with kids again." The GoFundMe is to pay for those costs. It won't do anything to undo the original miscarriage.

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

#116

Post by leephillips »

rmetzler wrote: post #18
leephillips wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half the problem, no? The other half being the police.

I upvote this, because you probably mean in this specific case and in this specific country. But my personal experience with the police here where I live is *very different* from the stories I hear from the US.

Yes, I was talking about an article describing a specific incident in a specific country.

But I agree that there’s a real problem with the police in the US, one that most US citizens seem not to be able to see clearly (except for people in black neighborhoods, who know what’s up with the cops—but the rest of the country hasn’t been listening to them). I was born and raised in the US, but I’ve been living outside the country for a few years, and the cop problem is one reason I don’t think I’ll be moving back.

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

#117

Post by libraryatnight »

Arrath wrote: post #86
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…

>> > 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 Then go downtown and.. do some police work? What the hell man, stop harassing an innocent mother.

This made me sick to my stomach to read. We're down a very dangerous road these days with FUD.

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

#118

Post by wyldfire »

> Her diversion program required 65 hours of community service, which Wallace completed at an early childhood center. The program mandated that she only work there during the weekends, when there were no kids around for her to endanger.

"for her to endanger"‽‽ The craziness started with the neighbor, continued with the cops, but then also through to sentencing!

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

#119

Post by JumpCrisscross »

giantg2 wrote: post #60
CodeMage wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There will always be people who overreact and call the police for inappropriate reasons. That isn't the problem. It's not the problem, but it is a problem. There's no reason we shouldn't try to work on both. > The problem is that the police, and then the DA, chose to make this a criminal matter. Either of them could and should have dismissed the issue after verifying that the child was not being put into a harmful…

The check and balance part isn't working. Any decent judge should see this lacks probable cause. But judges are not impartial and instead side with the DA/police by default.

> any decent judge should see this lacks probable cause

You're shoehorning complaints about the judiciary into a case which never made it to a judge.

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

#120

Post by rmetzler »

commandlinefan wrote: post #17

My house was 0.99 miles (seriously) from my kid's elementary school - the cutoff for bus service was 1 mile, so my kids were classified as "walkers" to elementary school. I went ahead and drove them myself anyway, but the school seemed perfectly fine with them walking 0.99 miles each way every day.

Weird country where kids can’t walk a mile alone.
Post reply on HN