An interview with two parents who lost their kids... over nothing.
One afternoon this past April, a Florida mom and dad I'll call Cindy and Fred could not get home in time to let their 11-year-old son into the house. The boy didn't have a key, so he played basketball in the yard. He was alone for 90 minutes. A neighbor called the cops, and when the parents arrived—having been delayed by traffic and rain—they were arrested for negligence.
They were put in handcuffs, strip searched, fingerprinted, and held overnight in jail.
It would be a month before their sons—the 11-year-old and his 4-year-old brother—were allowed home again. Only after the eldest spoke up and begged a judge to give him back to his parents did the situation improve.
I spoke with Cindy about her family’s horrible ordeal.
"My older one was the so-called 'victim,'" she said during a phone interview. But since she and her husband were charged with felony neglect, the younger boy had to be removed from the home, too.
Here is the law: "A person who willfully or by culpable negligence neglects a child without causing great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement to the child commits a felony of the third degree."
I first heard of Cindy's case last week when she wrote to me at Free-Range Kids. Her email explained:
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
8 comments:
If the boy was only playing bball in his yard and not causing a nuisance I know a neighbor who would start having problems with their house that would last for years.
It's these 'busy-body' neighbors that need to be charged. I can't see my nearest neighbor's house and after reading some of these stories I'm glad of it.
11 years old? Man I'd walk miles and miles away from home at that age.
If these kids were my neighbors I would have kept an eye on him until his parents got home. That's what neighbors should be doing, helping each other. Pity what our society has turned into. A bunch of back stabbing selfish whiners.
I am fortunate to live in a neighborhood where we look out for each other, not tattle on each other. We help each other and do favors and random acts of kindness. We shovel our older neighbors sidewalks. When I had the flu a neighbor mowed my front yard for me. I am truly blessed to live where I do.
Bad neighbors.
I don't know any of you are saying anything. Most of you approve of the nanny state.
armchair police officers always know how perps should have been handled
Nosy Neighbor! They should have kept an eye on the child and/or invited him over to their house for some milk and cookies and tv until Mom & Dad did get home. Neighbors sure are not what they used to be. Myself, I probably would have gone out and played ball with him until Mom & Dad did get home.
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