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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

#241

Post by michaelmrose »

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.

This is bad logic. If it was real it would be on google applies only to conspicuous news stories that effect many people or happen to catch the spotlight. There are 338M of us here in the US. I'm sure for all of us there are events that are notable, terrible, extraordinary. People are in accidents, die, are wronged, fail, triumph and most of it never makes the news and isn't available on google. If I search for my own name all I see are far more notable Michael Roses.

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

#243

Post by bhelkey »

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.

> 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.

>> the Reasonable Childhood Independence law that Texas passed in 2021 ... clarifies that parents are allowed to let their kids engage in independent activities as long as they aren't putting them in serious, likely danger.

The police did not enforce the law. Hence the anger towards the police officers and the DA.

Edit: I stand corrected, this is family law not criminal law.

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

#244

Post by nineplay »

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…

[flagged]

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

#245

Post by handoflixue »

fluidcruft wrote: post #225
bhelkey wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

CPS investigated and cleared them and then dropped the case. It's the cops and DA who kept going.

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"

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

#246

Post by dekhn »

geoffeg wrote: post #88
uoflcards22 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your kid is 3x more likely to be struck by lightning than kidnapped. Literally.

So we shouldn't allow children to go outside where the lightning could get them! (/s, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone seriously believes it is what we should do..)

I know a guy who continually insisted he was doing the right thing telling his child to get out of the pool if there was thunder. You know what? Far more people die from accidental pool electrocutions due to bad wiring than lighting (yes, I know this may be due to people getting out of the pool and avoiding death).

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

#247

Post by sschueller »

beardyw wrote: post #95
spoils19 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that the US has much greater freedoms than Europe, after all, we did fight for them. It's every US citizens understanding that with greater freedoms come greater responsibilities to raise children to be future leaders. This can't happen if a child is mowed down in a driveby or if they accidentally trip over while walking.

> 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.

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

#248

Post by cragfar »

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…

The Waco justice system was the one who open fired on that biker meet up at Twin Peaks, arrested everyone in the area, and held them on million dollar bonds to send a strong message.

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

#249

Post by diydsp »

neuronic wrote: post #192
giarc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Recursive problem if that parents are young: a 2 year old in public with its 20 year old father could be required to have a 50 year old present at all times.

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

#250

Post by public_defender »

ceejayoz wrote: post #21
ldh0011 wrote: post #2

This is ridiculous, kids can (and should) be a little bit independent. It was in his own neighborhood. And 20 years in prison as a maximum punishment?

Popehat has a good article on maximum sentences and why "faces a max of x years in jail" tends to be nothing like the actual probable consequence. https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...

This article looks good. I'll read below the fold later, but:

1) It's about federal sentencing, which is not the same as state sentencing.

2) Sentencing is complicated and often done wrong by practitioners. For example, in a situation where harm is greatly divorced from conduct (imagine the kid in this article died on the way home) mom could get 20 years for sure in some states/municipalities.

3) Most practitioners know that the maximum is way higher than the likely sentence, but judges and prosecutors (and sometimes certain wayward members of my tribe) insist on browbeating accused people with the possible maximum in order to procure a quick guilty plea. So I'll (always) accept some blame on e.g. the media for not communicating with reasonable clarity, but this situation where people focus on 20 years is actually the intended state of affairs brought about by prosecutors and judges.

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