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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

#191

Post by wccrawford »

klipt wrote: post #170
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…

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.

> If you don't want to be arrested for breaking a stupid law, vote for someone who will repeal it.

Easy to say, but you're voting for them for a lot more than that. If that's the only thing you care about, you can easily vote for that person. If you care about other things, it gets a lot, lot harder.

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

#192

Post by neuronic »

giarc wrote: post #46
rlkf wrote: post #25

In my twice-the-size European city, kids walk twice that distance to school and back home again, alone. Every. Single. Day. If this place isn't safe enough for kids to walk by themselves, maybe the question should be raised whether the police and municipal government really is doing their job the way they're supposed to.

The irony is one of the officers claimed the boy could have been kidnapped or taken into a sex trafficking ring. And their solution is to arrest the mom, not to take care of the kidnapping or sex trafficking.

The same concern can be voiced for 16 or 20 year old women and men. All of them can be abducted with ease by 2+ trained people. Should they also be accompanied by their moms at all times?

The cop just demosntrated himself that he isnt doing his job and that there is something deeply wrong with society if a child cant even walk half a mile at 8 years old.

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

#193

Post by dinkleberg »

bythreads wrote: post #141

Coming from a european perspective this is just completely balls to the walls nuts. Reminds me if that Danish mother who was arrested in N.Y. For leaving her kids sleeping in a tram outside a cafe window (with her on the other side) You guys (as a general completely unfounded generalization) live and breathe fear.

As an American I can also say this is completely balls to the walls nuts.

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

#194

Post by halfnormalform »

foobarian wrote: post #156
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…

> Yes, but what's their incentive to do so? Not only that, they have a reverse incentive: Say something bad happens to that kid, now the cops will be on the hook for letting them alone. The real problem is that the fabric of society is mostly gone. In years past, those cops would be chewed out by the old ladies at church the next Sunday. No wonder there is such a backlash building up in conservative areas of the coun…

False. Police have zero duty to protect anyone, per the Supreme Court.

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

#195

Post by jghn »

rlkf wrote: post #25

In my twice-the-size European city, kids walk twice that distance to school and back home again, alone. Every. Single. Day. If this place isn't safe enough for kids to walk by themselves, maybe the question should be raised whether the police and municipal government really is doing their job the way they're supposed to.

I just did a google maps search. In kindergarten at 5 years old I walked approximately 1/3 mile each way. I live in an urban environment now and outside of legal ramifications still would not think twice about allowing my child to do the same.

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

#196

Post by Kaibeezy »

Bhurn00985 wrote: post #28
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.

I did the same from the age of 7 and I turned out fine you know.

i've got that lotion you were asking for

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

#197

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

rlkf wrote: post #25

In my twice-the-size European city, kids walk twice that distance to school and back home again, alone. Every. Single. Day. If this place isn't safe enough for kids to walk by themselves, maybe the question should be raised whether the police and municipal government really is doing their job the way they're supposed to.

I think the point is that the place is plenty safe for the kid to walk by himself, it's just a perfect storm of officious cops and bureaucrats and a nosy neighbor.

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

#198

Post by pdonis »

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 books in the first place, but one of the things you're supposed to do as a neighbor is to understand that we have an insane legal system and not invoke it on one of your neighbors unless you really, really have to.

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

#199

Post by public_defender »

smallerfish wrote: post #105

I'm suspicious of the story, honestly. What are they leaving out? Searching for her name in google news, the Reason story is the only hit, and since this is the perfect piece to stoke their readers' engagement, I'm skeptical of their vetting. The GoFundMe was created back in September, and you would surely expect at least local news hits in google news by now.

I agree that Reason is pretty agenda-driven, and not really a reliable source of reporting, but I don't think there is a special reason to mistrust this story.

I have represented several hundreds of people in situations like this. This lady's story wouldn't be in my top quartile of stunning injustice. I have frequently called news outlets to tell them about outrageous cases, and stories like this just don't make news. It's not news that there's a child endangerment law in Texas, it's not news that the police make bullshit arrests, and there's not much else here.

The fact that there are no other mentions of this lady and her case on the internet is basically the hobgoblin of my professional life.

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