Arrested and charged because my 11yo was walking 1 mile from home | Hacker News Reader

Arrested and charged because my 11yo was walking 1 mile from home

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40 pointstomohawk50 comments

No joke, I’m actually more afraid of incidents like this than I am of my child being kidnapped or whatever. I wonder how common these sorts of incidents are compared to actual kidnappings (most of which are done by someone the child knows or is even related to).

Second fear after this is becoming internet-famous because someone filmed me in public without my knowledge.

Ye it is terrible.

To make your nightmares worse, what if the sheriff asks your 3yo 'Have your dad raped you?'. Like, the chance of a yes is probably about 50% and higher if the sheriff asks in a way where 'yes' is obviously the answer he wants.

With low enough crime rate the police becomes a greater threat then the ones they are supposed to protect you from.

Here in germany 6-7 year olds go to school alone in the morning around 6:30 when it's still dark outside. They either walk or take the bus/train, it's working perfectly fine.

That was the norm in the US in the 1970s.

Yup. Walked to school alone when I was 5. Eternally grateful for having that freedom as a kid.

This blows my mind. I just got done reading an account of my great grandfather who, by the time he was 10, was regularly wandering around alone in Montana, befriending Native American tribes, etc. When he was 12, he ran away and made it to the Great Lakes where he worked a regular job on a ship. America used to be pretty wild. Now, it seems more like a schizophrenic nanny state.

When I was that age I learned to get seriously lost in a vast suburb, and then figure it out and get oriented. Usually on my stingray bike. I pedelled around most of Orange County, CA. It was such a joy. I still love to go get lost and wander around a foreign place. I'm sorry for kids that have to cower in sight of home. Living in a smaller world makes them smaller.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Basically, "your child might encounter danger, so we're going to remove his mother from the equation and make him even less safe."

Wait until I tell you about the KESB in Switzerland and their crazy solutions to family crisis (real or imaginary).

Let’s hear

Husband beats wife repeatedly, gets removed and shut off by police, KESB removes kids from mother as "they don't receive a real family relationship" then separates the kids, shuts one of them 6yo in psych ward because "they don't react well to being placed out", places the others in their own relatives (KESB's that is) families who receive for this 7k CHF/month, give themselves 18k CHF for the papers generated for this, and ask from the wife/mother money to pay for all this procedure, putting her thusly in social support. Really, only because you're Swiss you don't have to defend all the bullshit in this country. And yes, I have quite a few more similar situations - I am close to the organization. And also yes, I'm trying to reach to the press (Saldo already contacted), so downvoting me will not reach anything real. You might be upset but can't believably deny this is a huge business going under radar. Trivia: guess which party everybody mentioned here is supporting.

This is reckless conduct and harassment on part of cops. I would sue them for damages, since they literally cannot prove danger and made the kid fear for their life.

Enjoy cops being lawyered. And your $10k+ settlement.

"According to the deputies" without a camera on? Tsk tsk.

Curious. What age do American children go to school on their own on public transport / foot / bike? In the UK (at least this corner of it) they’re allowed age 10.

In the 70's my elementary school was 2 miles away, and every day all the kids walked, rain, snow, whatever. Lines of kids from 1st grade through 6th. The bus was reserved for the kids out of town on farms. Back then, most of the school year was walking in the dark during the morning.

In the 1990s, I walked alone to to school starting at age 5. School was 0.8 miles from my home.

Starting at age 12 I took the Chicago El home from school most days. I got dropped off in the morning as it was on my dad’s route to work.

Around where I live now in the suburbs of another state I see kids walking to the local elementary school that look to be between 8-10. Most walk with their parents and some younger kids with older siblings/friends/neighbors. The main road is busy and people speed but there is a police officer at the main crossing on school mornings directing traffic.

Varies wildly. I was 7, went to school in the 90s/2000s. At least, at a time, it was less about 'allowed' and more 'required'

Even more than phones, this is the reason our children are being raised stuck indoors, contributing to the ever increasing mental health crisis with our kids. Instead they should be able to discovering the pride and joy that comes from self sufficient, independent exploration of the world around them. The government and society should form a support for parents, not treat them like their kids are already wards of the state and the parents only exist to support the government.

My daughters at 11 would be too embarassed to allow me to walk them to school! At 13 and 14 they took public transport (trains and buses for 2,5 hours) to go to an amusement parc (Efteling), which is about 130km from our home. And back again. By themselves.

And fun fact about the Efteling: "There is no minimum age to visit the park without an adult. Parents or guardians are perfectly capable of assessing this for themselves."

For another perspective, here is the local news story where I first heard about this- https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/ga-mother-arrested-after-ch...

My thought as I read it was that there are always multiple sides to the story.

Can you please summarise for those of us who can't access it from outside the US?

https://archive.md/jKJjz

I'm not sure it's much of a different take. She was arrested for reckless behaviour for not reporting the son missing within 1h when she knew he ran away on his own. (Georgia has no minimum time for missing person reports, she claims she didn't know about that process)

It's a shame that so many TV shows propagated the myth that you should wait 24 hours to report a missing person. The first 24 hours are the most critical!

It was true though and was a common policy. It definitely lives in the back of my mind, but I don't think I've seen any new movie mentioning in for a really long time.

It’s a very common trope in procedural crime dramas still.

From my memory they always said 24h for adults in movies. Kids never had a time limit in csi or similar shows

I wouldn't expect people in crisis to be attentive to nuance.

I always feel there are big contradictions in America. Imagine if something like this became an issue outside of the U.S., except, perhaps, if there are Morlocks [1].

Here’s a personal anecdote: I was at Miami Art Basel [0] with my family. We decided to spend a day or two at the beach. It was relatively empty, with just two noticeable groups: one couple practically having semi-clothed sex near us, and another group of two people who, by my standards, seemed anorexic.

While playing with my daughters in the sand, not hitting or kicking, just playful throws and holds where I was mostly the one falling. Those same “anorexic” individuals approached my wife to ask if our play was too rough.

Later that evening, I was searching for my mobile phone, which had been stolen. Since there was a “hard” party happening at our hotel, and I was with my daughters, security stopped me from crossing one of the exits, saying minors shouldn’t see the dancing. I replied, “I understand the rules here, but in my country, this is nothing.” For context, pogo dancing [2] is familiar to my daughters.

[0] https://www.artbasel.com/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morlock

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(dance)

Lol when I was 11 I would go on the train to another city on my own to visit my grandpa. In fact already when I was 9.

The GoFundMe campaign to support the mother in resisting this ridiculous over-reach is around 80% funded.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-parentsusas-fight-for-bri...

I actually found out from research after this article that some states have passed free range parenting laws and the things parents have been taught are no longer true in some states and letting your kids walk to school is legal in some states now where it previously wasn’t a few years ago.

Finally I can sleep again. I hope they will take this menace out of public for a long enough time to learn.

They should have arrested the 11 year old for good measure.

Sins of the father and all that.

This is really counterproductive policing. Seems like the big lesson the mother should take is about discussing her parenting with a police officer.

With kids involved many of the rights you normally have are removed. Police and DCS can use your silence (or a pile of dirty laundry, or you asking for a lawyer to be present, or anything they want) as a reason they need to take your child and put them in foster care, claiming that they see your actions as attempting to hide abuse or withhold access to the kid for investigation.

All the more reason not to overshare.

Hmm I live in a large Asian city. 11 year olds ride buses and do shopping errands by themselves. A mile a bit of a stretch though unless it is a school trip.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42118970

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https://archive.ph/ALWln

In a town with so few people the cops aren’t afraid of the consequences?

Can we just throw the weirdo who asked the kid creepy questions then called the cops to harass a child in jail instead? Then the cops in after her?

I'd say that we probably want people to care about children they think are lost.

The fault is with the police.

Even science fiction can't cook up a story quite this stupid.

I'm glad she's standing up to this nonsense. My parents would have spent their life in jail if these authoritarian officers caught wind of what I did by myself as an early teenager...

America is so neurotic

Hopefully this little demonstration of paternal authority will teach them the necessary submissiveness towards the dear leader, the loving government and their benevolent enforcers that'll be required of US citizens the next couple of decades. /s

The only crime here should be homeschooling.

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