Just when you think it can't get any crazier, it does. A Florida couple couldn't get home to let their 11 year-old son in the house, so he played basketball in the yard for 90 minutes. A neighbor called the police, and he and his 4 year-old brother, who wasn't left alone, were placed in foster care, and the parents were charged with a felony, not even permitted to cross the county lines to visit their children. 11-Year-Old Boy Played in His Yard, CPS Took Him, Felony Charge for Parents
In my area a couple allowed their 2 young children walk up and down a very busy area close to home to teach them to be independant. I have concerns knowing the area these kids where alone in is a very busy area and people snatch a child so quickly. The article above says the child was in his own yard, I feel the neighbor should have asked the child if all was ok, kept a watch out for him and when the parents got home spoke to them and explained his concerns. I watched a little girl get off the bus with my grandson a few years back, it was her first year in school, usually her father met her at the bus and walked her home, this day the father was not at the bus stop. The little girl walked home and could not get in the door. I had my grandson go to her house and bring her to our house because it was cold outside and she was scared. The father was home, he worked nights and had over slept. He was very happy that I had not called the police, which I would not have done in the first place, I may not have known them but I knew they took good care of their children.
That is ridiculous! How many parents, myself included, have come to the aid of a family who got caught by an unforseeable situation like this? The 11 year old was being very responsible, and the nosy worthless neighbor, who cared sooo much, needs to be shot! I feel really bad for that family.
Really why didn't this neighbor just ask the boy is all was OK instead of sticking their nose where it didn't belong. These parents didn't do anything wrong here, the boy wasn't going around getting into trouble. He was playing in his own yard waiting for his parents to come home to let him in the house. Seriously, where is CPS when it comes to those parents who do abuse or neglect their children? They are nowhere to be found or the kids fall through the cracks in the system. But good parents are made to pay for the bad ones, what is the matter with this picutre.
I don't understand people these days, or the police and child protective people who participate in the craziness. It's happening all over, though. Someone lost their children for a few days because they let the son play in the park across the street unsupervised. Unfortunately, there are places where this would be an unsafe act, but not everywhere yet this craziness is everywhere. A small town in Maine recently decided that parents could no longer allow their children to walk to school, as they always had. When I was living in Texas, one of my employees lost her four-year-old son for two weeks because she had looked away for a moment and her son went out into the yard while her husband was mowing the lawn. No one was hurt. When the boy's father saw his son in the yard, he stopped the mower and brought him back in. However, a neighbor saw the boy in the back yard and called the police, who called child protective services, who put her child in foster care, and it took two weeks and a few thousand dollars in attorney fees to get him back. I keep thinking that one day, everyone is going to wake up and say enough, but it never happens. Things just get worse.
WHAT? I really can't understand how all of this could happen. Does police in the USA not think at all? Jesus! Imagine how bad this situation is for both parents and children. Now I'm irrationally mad...
It seems like the police often function to solve whatever problem a caller might have. In Maine, we have no laws against carrying a gun in public, yet when someone calls to complain that someone is walking along the road with a rifle, the police will come out and tell him that he can't do that. "There are no laws that say that I can't carry a gun." "I know, but we've gotten complaints so you can't be carrying a gun here." I can appreciate that the police might be dispatched to ascertain whether the guy is an actual threat or not but once they have determined that no laws have been broken, they seem unwilling to simply tell the caller that he has a right to carry a gun. I had something similar happen here in Millinocket. We were collecting signatures for a petition outside of the post office. We were on the sidewalk, not on post office property. Someone, not associated with the post office, called to complain that we were collecting signatures outside of the post office. The only person working in the post office at the time said that he hadn't complained, so it was probably the town councilor who we were trying to recall who made the complaint. Cop: "You can't be collecting signatures here so you are going to have to find some other place to do that." Me: "We're on the sidewalk. We're not obstructing anyone from walking down the sidewalk, and we're not on post office property. We have every right to collect signatures here." Cop: "Well, we've had a complaint so you're going to have to move along." I called the town manager, who apparently called the police chief, who spoke to the cop on duty but, even then, he felt the need to pretend that he had authority to make us move. Cop: "Okay, we're going to let you stay here for now but if we get any other complaints, you'll have to move." I think that when some idiot neighbor calls to complain that someone left their ten year-old outside playing basketball, the police feel the need to do something about it, and then child protective services feels the need to continue the craziness.
I heard about this. It is simply nuts. Those kids will be far more greatly harmed in foster care and being away from their parents than 1 1/2 hours playing basketball. The kid was probably having a ball. Pardon the pun.
I wonder what kind of terrible lawyer this family ended up with, I read the story and it said something along the lines that the parents agreed to counseling? is that like saying they know that they were guilty? On what planet would their legal defender tell them thats a good idea? I can not help but feel there could be more to this story. It is true though, at least here in New York, you are not to leave your children alone if they are under the age of 14. Just this morning I read a story in the paper about a mom who was arrested because her three year old got out of the house while she was asleep and was wandering around. I was always very careful when I raised my son to make sure that he was never home alone because I know that this could be trouble, I always enrolled him in an after school activity and if it was a snow day I had to take the day off of work, thats just the way it was sometimes. It is funny because when I grew up my parents would often leave us alone with each other as they did the stuff they had to do. There is to many people that want to get into the business of other folks in the neighborhood. If that neighbor cared so much he or she should have asked the kid over. These days parents have it tough because it seems like everyone from the school system on down the line have far more credibility in their opinions then the actual parents do. I will never forget that there was a little girl that used to live acrossed the street from us, she was a latch key kid and for whatever reasons the owner of that home never put screens on the windows, so one hot day the kid is over there in the house with the window open talking to some other kids. She was sort of hanging out of the window, but not in a dangerous fashion, and someone called the cops. Well they come and they are walking down the street looking at the houses and I hear them say when they get to mine, well it can't be that one because there are storm windows up. See I have the old fashion hook and latching windows. I go out to the porch to see what this is about and see they have a copy of the school census of children on the block. The guy tells me that someone called about a kid in a white house hanging out of the window. My house is actually beige but that was besides the point. Now at this point I am thinking what kind of meddling idiot don't even get the address. I didn't tell them it was the kid acrossed the street because she really did not do anything wrong. It was a first floor window, even if she did fall out the window she would not be hurt. It wasn't like she was three years old. I think what really got my ire was the fact this kid did what she was suppose to, she was in the house not running the streets.
If things had been like they are now when I was a child I would never have seen my parents and they likely wouldn't have seen the light of day. I stayed home alone quite often from the time I was eleven (Actually, some from the time I was eight.) and there were many days when no one was there when I got off the bus from school. Of course, there were also many days when my mom picked me up at school along with several of my friends so we'd all get home early and could do something together. It just depended on what mom had going on on any particular day. Things today are just altogether crazy. And it's the same concerning animals as it is with kids. There are all of these adult tattle-tales running around ready to report any little thing they can find to report someone for.
That neighbor is so bad and wicked (!!!) to not use her head with her heart to provide 'shelter', at least, for that duration of time until the parents arrived. She could have used her time to bake cookies and offered it to the children. The police should have used their discretion to have provided protection for the children at their arrival (that's their job-- to protect-- not breakup and ruin families). I pray for a good moral Judge to see the family's case and unite them again. Where has people's moral duty to one another these days gone?!
There are some (few?) honest law enforcement who will simple do what is right , protecting families and neighbors and children without destroying them. Too often, as seen daily in the news, (usa), their (the honest ones) hands are TIED - because some wicked person made an anonymous report that is noted and recorded by law (for lots of money) and must be followed up in a manner directed by political protocol not related to health or safety at all. i.e. the police, etc, , will be written up at least, and fired sometimes, for not doing what the wicked system protocol/rules have put in place (leading to involvement of very bad officials resulting in very expensive and bad results overall) . What people do you believe think they have any moral duty at all to help someone else ?