This is yet another example of how f*ked up the US is. People are punished for being decent parents while lunatics still have the right to own guns. Land of the free indeed.
Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
681–690 of 763 posts
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#682Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I read online (and I can be very wrong) people are trained for 3 to 6 months in the US and then they are cops. It’s a least 2.5 years, 3 years, or 5 years (depending on your career choice) for police officers in Germany.
I also hear that in Germany you actually require people to know how to drive before you give them licenses. We could learn a few things from you. Cops in the US frequently shoot themselves in the foot, shoot blindly into buildings, etc. Yes, hordes of untrained armed police with emotional problems are a big issue in the US. They are empowered by the knowledge that the legal system will almost never hold them accounta…
Yeah. The test is harsh, but you get really good drivers out of it. Driving in the US isn't bad, but it's noticeably worse than in Germany.
If you want to have fun, compare how many bullets are fired by cops in Germany to how many people are killed by cops in the US. Those numbers have no business being this close to each other.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#683Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is referring to federal sentencing.
The same thing happens in state sentencing. There's a vast gap between minimum and maximum sentencing. Most sentences fall somewhere in the middle, depending on the details of the particular act in question. (You stole from a little old lady versus stealing from a drug dealer, for example.)
Doesn't that lead to vastly unfair sentencing? For example you could target a specific group with harsher sentences, or use minor crimes to stick people with the maximum sentence. Everyone is guilty of something.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#684Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Kudos to you for bucking the trend and encouraging your kids to do things like spending afternoons romping around outside! Complete anecdata, but the parents in my close friend group are split between "parents with a more free-range kid mindset" and "typical upper-middle-class parental paranoia." The free-range kids are mostly happy-go-lucky, emotionally stable, and thriving. Almost every single kid over the age of 1…
Our society is way too tolerant of that kind of behavior. It's similar to how there are still occasional people wearing masks, even outdoors. It needs to become socially acceptable to tell people they're being paranoid and weird, in the same way they feel it's acceptable to tell others they're not paranoid enough.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#685Earlier quoted context omitted.
> smile politely all the way to avoid escalating. That attitude, while perhaps more comfortable in some ways, just enables the sort of behaviour you encountered, and apparently disliked, from that woman. A blunt response like, "Fuck off. Don't talk to my son.", followed by walking away from her, may have been harsher and not particularly polite, but perhaps it'd cause a person like her to avoid such meddling in the f…
LOL, let me tell you what happens if you say "fuck off" to an elderly lady if you are a normal dude. The retired lady, with nothing to do with her time all days, will sit back and scheme about the interaction. She will decide you are an adversary, disrespectful man who needs to be put in his place after 'abusing' an elderly citizen and a child. You have maybe 1,2 free hours a day to deal with unexpected things that c…
A fix: legal penalties for filing false or irrelevant CPS reports.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#686Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excellent point.. in these places it is not normal to ever travel from point A to point B without getting in a car. Anyone walking is suspect. It's bizarre. Where I live the police are not insane like this but people will still be shocked if they find out you walked 1/2 mile instead of taking a car.
It's not even just about children. When I went to the US for a research visit, I didn't have a car, because my bed and breakfast was in walking distance to the lab (there was even a bus). So, naturally, I walked to a nearby restaurant in the evening, and was stopped by the police, asking me what I was up to. It didn't have any consequences, but still.
That must be common. I remember many years ago I was walking to the Google MTV campus from a corp apartment in Mountain View itself. It's a fair walk, maybe an hour. I was doing it because it was sunny and why not. A cop car pulled over and asked if I was OK. They were friendly but the only apparent cause of this visit was that I was walking. I found that deeply strange.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#687Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I write software, I know that users will do dumb things and it is my responsibility to write my code in such a way that they can cause no damage. The legal system should have similar responsibilities. If citizens can report crimes, some citizens will incorrectly report non-crimes. If the legal system can't handle that, the that is entirely the fault of the legal system.
The legal system long ago worked around this - they allow virtually every person at every level to exercise "discretion." An officer can frequently choose how to handle an issue, a prosecutor can choose not to prosecute, etc. Occasionally, we see well meaning policies going astray - the "must arrest someone" domestic calls in jurisdictions are a contentious-but-great example. Sometimes calls get put in spuriously and…
It is good that the agents have this wiggle room, because you cannot craft a law that could handle any case. This is why it is important to have competent people that represent the state and see that laws are followed. On the contrary, people should be incentivised to constantly reflect if a law really serves justice. If not, the legislative branch needs to change it.
Problem here is that the success of policing in politics is measured by number of closed cases or by how many people got convicted after their arrest. By crime rate and success in fighting it. This of course creates perverse incentives for the most part. Budget fights and politics leave justice far behind.
If there is no more crime in a country, it shouldn't mean that police are getting pressured because they arrest fewer people. But exactly that would probably follow in a political discussion.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#688As a Canadian this is like a story from some 3rd world country. I remember frequently walking to school that distance as a kid. It wasn't abnormal nor dangerous. That it would be "illegal" is some crazy stuff.
No post body was provided.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#689This happened in Waco? These folks need their Texas cards confiscated.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#690Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. I have no problem blaming this behavior. To be clear, it would not be productive to blame only the neighbor.
That woman has no certification or authority to decide whether a child is in danger, and the fact that the kid was a block away from home is not some undeniable indicator that he wasn't. That woman has a civic responsibility to call authorities when she's worried about the welfare of a child. The authorities have a responsibility to be competent. The woman fulfilled her responsibility, the entire justice system faile…
What? No. People have a civic responsibility to protect exercise good judgment and common sense. If the people are broken the justice system, or any system, can’t fix it.