During the arrest, [Brittany] Patterson...said to one of the deputies, "Last time I checked, it wasn't illegal for a kid to walk to the store."
But the deputy replied, "It is when they're 10 years old."...
Authorities said they would drop the charge against Patterson if she signs a safety plan that involves the use of a GPS tracker on her son's phone but... "I just felt like I couldn't sign that and that in doing so, would be agreeing that there was something unsafe about my home or something unsafe about my parental decisions and I just don't believe that," Patterson said.
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Georgia? I could see that in MA, but not GA.
What is wrong with the police?
Is there really a law in Georgia that says a child can't walk outside alone?
I'm not buying the officer's complaint, and if there isn't, I hope she sues. However, I guess authorities are still pushing the issue, so they must have some foolish regulation.
I suspect Althouse commentariat is old enough to remember when it was commonplace for children to walk all over the place by themselves and before GPS was even a technology.
I can't imagine growing up in a prison like that. We were lucky.
Alternatively, Georgia is too blue and apparently sucks as a place to live in freedom.
Fannin County is on the Tennessee border just southeast of Chattanooga, so it is not big city or snowflake territory. Weird!
This county is in the red territory, so it is more than that.
Way too many Karens out there…
A lot of small town cops have too much ego to back down and they aren't used to citizens fighting back.
I know times change, but where I grew up in the 70s you left the house in the morning then came home before dark, and likely grabbed lunch at a friend's house somewhere in between.
This is the Blue Ridge area of GA. Very nice, and very red.
It is also the county where the author of 'Deliverance' was from.
The Nanny State will track you down.
Though I'm inclined to agree with the overly officious cop assumption, the picture given seems incomplete. More background is required.
The mom didn't "let" the kid walk into town, he just did it. What she did is leave the kid home alone. Is that a crime at 10 years old? And if it is, why did the cops drop the boy off back at his home when his mom was still gone and leave him there alone? That's the same thing she did.
The gestapo strikes again. Another reminder, all politics is local. Someone proposed this ordinance and it was voted on and implemented. Always pay attention to what happens in your community. Karen's are far to plentiful and wide spread.
If that town is so dangerous the cops should be using their resources to arrest bad guys, not parents.
These dumb cops should be working with parents and helping them, not treating them as bad guys. They should have just called the mom and checked with her, told her what was up, told her son was safe and they'd taken him home, been her ally.
Their leadership is cultivating an 'us vs them' attitude toward civilians. That is common in police depts but it's a bad way for cops to think. It creates an 'us vs them' attitude among the civilians towards the cops. Bad leadership. Poor training.
Got out the map when I first read this. Kindergarten my mother walked me to school the first day- as did a bunch of other mothers. For me- 0.75 miles. First and last day I was ever walked to school. A little bit further to the local pool. Every kid there did that on their own one they had a pool badge. 1.25 mils to the Methodist Church, which I did every Saturday starting in kindergarten, going with my whopping 2 year older sister! Who was in teh children's choir. I was too young- but the choir director found a spot for me since I was at practice anyhow with my sister. She was also my kindergarten teacher in the public school.
On a related note about religion and small towns- my first grade and second grade teachers were my first and second grade Sunday School teachers.
Moved between 2nd and 3rd grade. There we bussed to school, about 3 miles by road. After we got home we'd walk back to school to use the playground, 0.5 miles through the dirt path in the woods.
But routinely, up until I got my first bicycle, wandering 1-2 miles from the house without adult supervision was an everyday occurrence from kindergarten on. Once I had the bicycle, well, miles...
Children in danger became a PUBLIC PROBLEM in the 70s, with the ratings-gold discovery of child sexual abuse. Before that children were free-range.
Child sexual abuse was before then a personal moral failing and illegal but not a public fetish. More important was spanking or not spanking and such various theories of raising children.
I was two miles away on the firemen's pole (ten foot high platform, ladder, pole) in the school playground.
Don't blame the deputy for this one. It isn't the deputy who insists that she GPS track her son or charged her with criminal negligence. This is coming from his superiors.
I was alone a lot at that age, and walked around my boring suburb alone. But later I realized my brother was supposedly "taking care" of me, in my parent's mind, so it was all okay. But he was AWOL of course.
Sounds like Barney didn’t get his free doughnut.
Are young citizens now required to carry papers to prove their age?
On its surface this is absurd, if I were forced to dig deep and conjecture a real reason it would be the store owner complaining about unattended kids (not necessarily this one in particular) in his store du to shoplifting risks and just not wanting to manage them.
We may have free-ranged as children, but my mom knew where I was. "I'm going to so-and-so's house to ride bikes." We didn't leave without a check in.
I would expect that an elected official will sense the politics are on this are bad and get the charges dismissed with an apology to the mom and 10 year old.
I would expect that an elected official will sense the politics are on this are bad and get the charges dismissed with an apology to the mom and 10 year old.
No immunity for the people responsible for this.
I can't help thinking that there's more to this story than we're getting from the news account.
When I was 10 years old, I travelled from the far North Side of Chicago to Lincoln Park five days a week to attend 5th Grade. It was a 45+ minute trip that involved combinations of walking, El trains and bus rides.
I cannot imagine how I survived such a horrific experience.
My mom never knew where I was. And I (and my crew) were all over town on our bikes all day. Most Mom ever got in the morning was "I'm goin' out to play." She might occasionally ask, "What'd you do today?" when I got home. She was in no way a negligent mother, btw.
Depends on the town and the situation. Walking along a busy highway, with no shoulder, when 10 y/o? That's a problem. Walking alone in downtown Oakland or Detriot, yeah that's a problem.
Isn't this where all us old folks talk about how we biked and walked everywhere, and our parents didn't care? "Why in my day....."
If the Democrats/Progressives had their way, we The People would perpetually be sheltering-in-place.
Starting at age 6, I was dropped off at my downtown (Catholic) school by my father on his way to work in the morning. After school let out at 3, I walked two blocks downtown, caught a City bus, which dropped me off about half a mile from my home, which I walked. The 50s were a different country.
Yeah except this happened in a red county in a red state. Karen's exist on all sides of the political divide
Somehow I get the feeling there is more to this story, than just this incident. 72 hour rule on this one. It's too obvious, as it stands.
The only reason it could possibly be a problem for this kid to walk to school is if the police and prosecutors are NOT DOING THEIR JOBS.
This mother has won a jackpot and the taxpayers of Georgia are going to take it up the kiester for ever voting Democrat. They deserve this.
Absolutely normal behavior up until the turn of the century. By that standard my parents and I are serious criminals
In 1960 about 60% of women were not in the labor force. Hence, most of them were at home during the day. Fast forward 30 years and 60% of women are in the labor force and hence not at home during the day. That's a lot fewer eyes watching what is going on in the neighborhood. It makes a difference. Not the whole story, but a part.
Her kids should just tell the cops they're heading to an appointment with their gender-affirmation therapist, or to get an abortion.
If there is such a thing, it is likely vague enough to give a willing cop and prosecutor the wiggle room to "do something" for the safety of the child, don't you know.
As others have noted, when I was growing up, mom would kick us all out of the house at sun-up with dad expecting us home by sun-down. Ages ranging from 14 to 9. In various combinations we would ride our bikes a few miles away to "main street" or the library or the local state park as well as play on the horse trails that started just a block away. And before anyone things this was the boonies, this was Babylon, Long Island, in the 70s
The AP story leaves out some relevant facts. The town has a population of 370, and the walk was only a mile along roads with low speed limits (25-30 if I recall correctly). The mother is justified in being outraged.
some details always check foreign media - kid is home schooled! so potential alleged truant - mom should have made lesson plan in geography
Bob, please STOP Trying to introduce facts and reason into this..
This is about FEELINGS
that's why you should have Several children.. An heir and a spare (or spares)
for details always check foreign media - kid is home schooled! so potential alleged truant - mom should have made lesson plan in geography
Cops are wrong... I still would not let my grandkids do that but... I don't know what kind of community they live in. Some are quite safe here in Texas. Some are not.
What happened to create this ? Did pedophilia suddenly become prevalent? Did small families change the degree of supervision that was "normal"? Planned Parenthood seems to have created a mentality of Planned Childhood.
My parents were far too busy to closely supervise us. Ditto for the parents of my friends.
A bumper sticker I saw at the Pentagon ~1990:
If you love something, let it go
If it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it.
I can remember when I was 5 learning to ride a bike cycling (with stabilisers) to my friends, in whose garden I learned to ride without stabilisers. His Dad took the stabilisers off, pushed and hey I was cycling. We'd go out every Saturday from breakfast to tea - and in one town, Tring, it was on the A41 a major highway. We got ourselves to school every day and that was just normal. What is going on, now?
Based on the article, it doesn't sound like an ordinance. It says that "failure to provide a child with adequate supervision necessary for such child's well-being" is part of a state guideline of things that can be considered neglect.
Everyone is going to support "neglect" of a child being illegal. They just don't think about the appointed drones who get to decide what neglect involves.
I was left home alone on Saturdays, with chores to do, at 9 and 10. I used to have dinner ready when Mom and Dad would get home with the other kids from their sports and work.
The arrest happened on October 30. A woman saw him walking and asked if he was okay. He said he was, she called the police anyway.
The road he was walking by has speed limits of 25 or 35 MPH, depending on the section of road.
In the meantime, the child has turned 11.
What time is "tea"?
They would probably have given my mom the death penalty.
When I was 11 she would drop some friends and me at the Dedham line where around take a bus and the trolly to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox. When we returned we would call her and wait to be picked up.
Times have changed.
They would probably have given my mom the death penalty.
When I was 11 she would drop some friends and me at the Dedham line where around take a bus and the trolly to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox. When we returned we would call her and wait to be picked up.
Times have changed.
I live half a mile from an elementary school. Every day an hour before school ends around 100 cars start queuing to pick their kids up at the end of the day. I don't know if they live too close to the school for bus service and the parents just feel the need to pick them up or they are required to pick them up. I rarely see kids walking home. It's sad.
As others have noted, when I was growing up, mom would kick us all out of the house at sun-up with dad expecting us home by sun-down. Ages ranging from 14 to 9. In various combinations we would ride our bikes a few miles away to "main street" or the library or the local state park as well as play on the horse trails that started just a block away. And before anyone things this was the boonies, this was Babylon, Long Island, in the 70s
Todd, as a child I lived not far from there in East Northport in the 60's, and often walked to school just under a half-mile away. Often, but not always, with my brother (older by two years), and certainly by the time I was a third grader so around 8 years old. Even back then that area was far more built up than what I'm seeing for Mineral Bluff today.
It's nuts. By the way, the kid is almost 11. The Independent story says there's a Go Fund Me to pay for the defense attorney; it's already raised $45,000.
Petty tyrants wherever we turn!
Where I grew up, in the 1970s, kids who lived in town had to walk to school. The school buses were only for the kids who lived in the country. And those know da had to make their way to the main road to be picked up.
We walked along a busy road with no sidewalks for about two blocks and then sidewalks the rest of the way. If it was raining or snowing, mom drove us.
Maybe the kid was seen near a pedo halfway house.
He was just following orders!
I was allowed to walk several blocks to kindergarten. In fact I don’t remember ever having a chaperone to school.
I told this story on another site so forgive me if you've seen it.
From the age of 6 to just short of my 10th birthday I'd get off the old yellow school bus at the intersection of the highway and the dirt road I lived on. One side of the dirt road had a scattering of rural homes and the other side had a reservoir. It was a half mile walk from the intersection to our house and most days I made the walk alone. I had an older sister but she wasn't always on the same bus as I. Some days when the fields were dry I'd take a shortcut through the cotton, tomatoes or beets they grew there.
Nobody reported my mom. No one thought a thing of it. This was a different time, of course, but rural farmland hasn't changed that much in 50 years. The neighbors are still keeping an eye on other people's kids and it's as sure as hell safer than letting a kid walk to the park in a city.
Very nice, very red … and very dead above the shoulders.
😆 Actually, they are looking for a couple of “sex offenders” here in GA that have failed to report for several months now.
Amen. I feel sorry for kids today. They can't go anywhere where their parents can't track them. They might as well wear a GPS ankle bracelet.
at least in the case of law enforcement.
How far from where Wayne Williams plied his sick trade?
Growing up in the 1960s my house was surrounded by at least five mental institutions. Starting in kindergarten we had to walk home from elementary school through a gauntlet of adult incarceral mental patients (what they used to call “feebs” and “mongoloids”), dressed in ragged clothing, let looose on day passes.
No worries, they would blow a rooftop emergency horn you could hear for over a mile when one of the dangerous ones escaped.
My initial impression is that it's likely kids are coming to the school near you from all over your city in order to achieve ... 'equity' IYKWIMAITYD. Second is probably caregivers or parents picking the kids up for private afterschool activities, or because parents are still working.
This sounds to me like a situation where police are taking it upon themselves the discretion to decide what is or is not a crime. The cop who stated "It is when they're 10 years old" should be forced to find the specific statute that says that, and if there isn't one then he should be fired. The job of cops is to enforce the law, not make up laws as they go.
Reed and Malloy would have exercised more discretion.
Free-range child raising is a thing in Manhattan, but hasn't reached rural Georgia? Who can shed light on this? Sounds like a job for the NYT style pages and the Moms Who Think website.
Her GoFundMe is here. But she should have used GiveSendGo. The leftist dick-suckers at GoFundMe will probably shut her down and steal her money.
Sounds like a situation where a warning should have been issued. Of course those days are fading away too. Inner city kids are probably wondering what the ruckus is. Kids in the '60's are also going WTF?
Tea time was around 5pm. We'd go for walks in the woods, along the canal, up into Wigginton on the Icknield Way.
Tea time is when Countdown is on…
This mom should buy the kid a carry pistol and send him back out there.
Mom said that her son knew the way to town, less than a mile away, and son generally had permission to go that far. That particular day he didn’t have explicit permission but that shouldn’t factor in to the general standard that applies to parental neglect. A normal almost 11 year old kid can certainly walk to the store on his own without that being prima facie negligence.
In MA sheriffs are in charge of the local graft so no time for for pretend law enforcement. Staties have become too corrupt even for Massachusetts so they don’t have time either…That leaves town le and some of them are republicans…
The cops left the boy at home alone. If he'd have walked to the store again before his mom got home would the cops have arrested themselves for reckless endangerment?
The cop said the mom was being arrested for reckless endangerment. That's pretty nebulous concept in this case. Was it really "reckless" to leave this 10-year-old home alone for a couple hours? And how much danger was there? I mean, there's always some kind of danger. It's possible a rope could have broken and a piano could have fallen onto his head.
It comes down to likelihood. How do you judge that? How do you standardize that? Some kids are more mature at 10 than others are at 12 or 15. Was this boy safe at home alone at 10? Home is where he was supposed to be. Apparently, because the cops left him there alone.
Maybe they'll reduce the charge to 'Failure to parent in a careful and prudent manner.'
Confirms what people tell me... The only reason someone becomes a cop is because they couldn't get a job as a grocery bagger.
Lesson learned, never talk to the police.
What's the matter with Georgia?
The arresting deputy is a tatted-up sweathog who most likely could not walk a mile to the store if her life depended on it.
So, no warning, no notification, no nothing. They just went to her house, cuffed her and took her to jail.
Hopefully this will cost the elected Sheriff, Dane Kirby, his job. But probably not.
I was doing 10 mile bike rides when I was 10.
The arresting deputy is a tatted-up sweathog who most likely could not walk a mile to the store if her life depended on it.
Actually, that statement, if true (I haven't seen pics), explains it all.
Christopher, we later moved to East Northport, bigger house with two (count them TWO) bathrooms. I used to walk to the Jr. Highschool for school and on the weekends to use the hand-ball courts. Later walked the train tracks to get to the high school, was only a couple of miles down the tracks. I consider myself very lucky having been able to go to Northport Highschool back in the late 70s, early 80s. Not sure about now but back then it was quite the "progressive" place (as in treating you like an adult). Open campus style and they structured it like you were in college. I discovered my love of computers there and went on to make it a lifetime career (40+ years).
She's in the video at the link Althouse provided.
It's possible the kid has made trouble on his own before, and this is the sheriff's screwy way of reining him in without giving him a juvie record.
FIFY: "Maybe they'll reduce the charge to 'Failure to parent in a careful and prudent manner acceptable to the Oppressive Nanny State.".'
No one was harmed, a lesson was learned, and advisory was relayed, conventional wisdom would have suggested a handshake and part ways amicably.
Me, as a 10-year old (in 1958). "I'm gonna bike over to meet Mark."
"Where are you going?"
"I dunno know."
"Okay, be back by 5."
WHY insert sheer speculatin into this situation. A juvie record for walking down the road alone? S N O R T
Christopher, we later moved to East Northport, bigger house with two (count them TWO) bathrooms. I used to walk to the Jr. Highschool for school and on the weekends to use the hand-ball courts. Later walked the train tracks to get to the high school, was only a couple of miles down the tracks. I consider myself very lucky having been able to go to Northport Highschool back in the late 70s, early 80s...
Todd, that's great, thank you for sharing. I went to that junior high for about half of my first year in that school before moving away in 1969. I had some great teachers both in elementary and onward that I remember fondly to this day.
The places I roamed as a child are too dangerous for me to venture into as an adult.
But that's because they are ghettoes now.
Leland said...
“Is there really a law in Georgia that says a child can't walk down the street?”
Maybe he was snappin his fingers and shufflin his feet
Singing “Do wah diddy diddy, dum diddy do”
I had 5 brothers, I was second. I went anywhere I wished, and spent a lot of time in a 10 acre wooded vacant lot next to our house. My well supported underground diggings were deeded to younger brothers, a family heritage.
I think cops react to kids who look like they don't know what they are doing. I always was going somewhere, so stayed out of the eye.
I walked every day to school, about half a mile, without adult supervision starting at age 5. The last couple of street crossings had a safety patrol boy (a 5th or 6th grader), and a crossing guard at a big main street. But for the first 6 blocks I was on my own, though in practice I usually walked with a schoolmate. I remember being taught in kindergarten about safety ("stop, look, and listen, before you cross the street"), and not accepting rides from strangers. No one thought even kindergartners couldn't handle the responsibility.
We need to have Joe Friday give an explanation to the 'tatted up sweat hog'.
I was allowed to wander this far from home when I was 8. With a BB gun. And at age 10, a single-shot .22 caliber rifle.
At 10 I not only had a bicycle on which I roamed several miles from home routinely, I also had a row boat with which I'd run a 100 ft troutline for crabs and go on the water wherever I could manage with oars. At 13 I graduated to a sailboat and was often on the water all day.
At ten in south L.A., I was riding a bike a mile at five in the morning to serve the 6 o'clock Mass on Sunday. During the week, I rode it to the attached grade school. At the same time, I had two bikes stolen in that neighborhood..
This sounds like a charge Kamala Harris, Prosecutor, could get behind, especially if it means the state gets money somehow.
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