Suburban Mom Arrested For Child Endangerment

Originally posted by coven
The cop should be charged with child endangerment for the two girls abandoned in the Wal-mart... And Psychological damage to those children as well.

These are excellent points !

This is ultimately a Psychological operation executed by the state.

"we are watching you...you must submit to our will..we know what is best for you and your child" --YIKES !!!!

How about a nice law suit against WalMart?

Walmart did willfully create an unlawful and menacing nuisance by displaying a "money drop" near a parking lot full of innocent children traveling with their parents.

Walmart then enticed the parents of these innocent children with a colorful "song and dance" routine designed specifically to draw the parent out of the safety of their vehicles for the sole purpose of monetary gain.

Walmart's continued practice of wealth redistribution led directly to massive child endangerment incidents

Could it have been possible for the cop to check the scene and determine the actual level of endangerment?

Then, confront the parent with his concern about the possibility that the child may have been distressed.

The fact that this cop could have made the decision, that the best way to "serve and protect" this sleeping 2 year old was to arrest the mother and abandon the other children, seems at best a poor judgment and boarders on criminal neglect

The state seems to have an agenda of separating parents from their children

I would like to remind those talking about heat related deaths that this mother stated she did not want to risk taking the child out in the sleet. In case you live in a climate that doesn't experience sleet, that's small ice pellets with a bit of snow.

I really don't think heat was an issue. Unless of course the mother in typical Christmas Story fashion had wrapped the child in so many layers of clothing she couldn't put her arms down. In which case, how dare she?! ...

reply to post by Thurisaz

This WASN'T about leaving a kid in a suffocatingly hot car. She was 15 feet from the car. The cop was having a bad day and made an example out of the woman, who did NOT park in the lot and walk away, she parked in the loading zone 20 feet from the bucket on a cold, sleety day. The female cop ranted at her about how she was sick of people putting their kids in jeopardy on her watch. She (the cop) was yelling at the woman so much that the children, who were witnessing this, backed away from the cop and so the cop didn't even notice them. The woman called her husband, who was 5 minutes away, and he told her not to say anything, he'd be right there. She shut up (which resulted in the obstructing justice charge) and waited. Then she was handcuffed and put into a police car and driven away while the 3, fourth grade children still went unnoticed. Dad arrived and picked up the kids, talked to the extra, responding officers who were still there and realized his wife really was taken into police custody as was his two year old little girl, who was still in the car being guarded by police until DCFS arrived (or something like that).

This isn't a case of endangering a child. This is a case of a police officer taking out her aggression on a shopper. I just watched an interview with the parents (It's a local story for me) and they're pissed! They want an apology and they especially want some action from the police department to allay their kids fear of policemen, which now exists.

This was WRONG!

Crestview Police STILL have no comment.

Cuhail

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
reply to post by Thurisaz

 

Why on earth would she feel the need to LOCK her car, if it is [really] only a few feet away in her site? That makes no sense.

It makes sense to me. If she knew that her back was going to be turned to her car and her children, it makes perfect sense. Most folks lock the doors when they are INSIDE the car, so I don't see any problem with the Mom's actions at all.

reply to post by greeneyedleo


After reading this it makes even more sense what the mother decided to do. Some cops are just stupid beyond belief. If the cop were really concerned he should have just kept an eye on the 2-year old to watch out for possible burglars or kidnappers. If Mom had gone back inside Wal-Mart the arrest would have been much more understandable to me. I don't condone leaving children unattended in cars at all, but given the circumstances with sleeting rain and possible slippery parking lot, Mom did the right thing to address her concerns of falling with her youngest child by putting the child in a relatively safe and warm environment. All Officer Friendly had to do was make sure that there was no foul play.

reply to post by rmj1969



Whoah there, buddy. I understand your sentiment, but, let's not start name calling. I disagreed with his post as well, but, we don't respond like that here.

Welcome to ATS, where thousands of opinions dwell in a great place to air them. Nicely.


I give her and her husband props and I hope that the Crestwood PD gets sued. Tell them that I support them.
Cuhail

Well here are my thoughts
I will never leave my child in a car alone no matter how long I am gone. Once when she was five I left her in a locked car for maybe a minute and a half while I ran into a store, I grabbed a carton of milk and was the only person in line so it could not have been more then that. When I came out she had covered herself in her jacket and was sobbing, in that short period of time someone had tried to break into our car, I didn't see anyone around, so that's how fast they were. However, if I had not of had that experience I probably still would leave my child in a car for periods less then 5 minutes. For that police officer to leave the other children unattended is just beyond me. I don't see how there was any need to handcuff her or take her away from the kids for any amount of time. She deserves an apology.

I'll tell y'all what. I have a 9-year-old little girl. Taking her out of the car and putting her back in is hard for us because she's physically handicapped and uses a very heavy power-wheelchair that CANNOT be loaded and unloaded into the vehicles we have by only one person. Therefore, we have the travel-chair which is a ten-minute ordeal getting the chair out, unfolded, the kid in it, and then repeated in reverse when returning to the car. If I go out with the kid and not my wife. I'm leaving the kid in the car while I...

Get gas.
Pick up a pack of smokes.
Run in and pay a bill.

Horrible? No, I also find that any fear is disuaded because I add one simple thing to the mix.

Also in recent news...

Baby hijacked in car theft
Car Left Running With Child Inside Gets Stolen
Police find car stolen with baby in it

Here is a local story that I'll quote from.

reply to post by greeneyedleo


I am with greeneyedleo on this one. I don't think we are getting the whole story here. Especially this time of year, it would be next to impossible to do what this woman said she did. Seems a bit fishy. If she is telling the truth however, this is ridiculous. If she is lying and locked her child in while she went shopping, she got what she deserved.

Sheesh. Fishy? She parked right where you pick up the X-mas Trees in front of a Wal-Mart, right next to the guy ringing the bell and watching the red bucket. She was going to take a picture of her two older daughters (8-9 Y-O) and their friend drop $8.00 into the S.A donation bucket. She was right there. The cop lady was right there. What on EARTH is going to happen in that 2 minutes? Under those circumstances?
I'm sure we can all think up some horrible, terrible event that could somehow take place.
It was the cop. She said she was sick -SICK of all these suburban moms and She (The mom) wasn't going anywhere. And so on.

It was the cop's bad mood that made this happen. Period. It's obvious. I AM suprised they didn't taze her, but, that's only because her husband told her to shut up. Which, wisely, she did.

I read the articles.
I watched the interview this morning with the parents.
I believe them.

Cuhail

Originally posted by Cuhail
I bring the dog too. My dog tells everyone they're too close to my car, whether or not the kid is in there. If the dog's there, my kid is safe. Add to that, I lock the doors and take the keys with me.

Forget car alarms, I got good old Sallie Derra in the backseat.

Cuhail

[edit on 12/14/2007 by Cuhail]

sorry... I just had to say... Lets hope she's not wearing the Santa hat... Burglars may think shes a bit friendly, and giving if thats the case...



*sorry... sometimes these threads need a little cooling down with a bit o' humor*

WOWEE!!! You know what floors me??? That she got off so easy with the cops! I mean people have been tazed and beaten for far less. I mean, she refused to speak until her husband arrived - that certainly warranted a repeated jolt of 50,000 volts and a good wood shampoo from our friendly public servants.

Her gall to actually exercise her 5th Ammendment rights and refuse to make a statement! They should have made an example of her, tazed her a good 15 to 20 times, roughed her up while she was handcuffed, imprisoned her and removed her children from her home. I mean, honestly, they do it every single day to people for lesser transgressions.

But seriously folks... cops are PIGS! Jackbooted brownshirt thugs who should NEVER be trusted for anything. I'm still in awe that they allow these mouth-breathing slackjaws to even carry weapons. Because, as we've seen, they obviously believe that every single 87 year old woman, pregnant mother, polish immigrant, sleeping drunk, deaf mute in a bathtub, handcuffed suspect or father holding his baby is a deadly threat that should be assaulted first and repeatedly before honoring their commitment to "Protect and Serve"

NWA was right, "F*@# The Police!"

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
This woman deserves the death penalty!!!

Anyone who would endanger a child should be shot and killed!!

If the world we live in today makes it dangerous to do what she did, we should all jump off a cliff. That is the real problem.
Stop treating the effects, the cause will be there
This world is our creation
I do not want to hear "People are good but there are some bad guys that ruin everything".

There was a story about two stupid women, a mother and a grandmother and a baby. On a shelf above the baby's head was a big piece of rock. The two women sat watching and crying waiting for the rock to fall down and kill the baby.
When the father came home and saw them, he left the hose and traveled the world with the intention never to return unless he found people that are more stupid than those in his house He found them and returned to see the piece of rock very well tied up with strings and the women happy

What's going on today ? We punish the woman that left her baby inside her car. I do not care if it's harder to fix the entire society than punish 1 woman, that is the real cause

[edit on 14-12-2007 by pai mei]

[edit on 14-12-2007 by pai mei]

Originally posted by Cuhail
reply to post by Thurisaz

 

This WASN'T about leaving a kid in a suffocatingly hot car.

This isn't a case of endangering a child.

This was WRONG!

Firstly, I posted the information to support what I originally stated, that in Australia this issue is treated very seriously for the reasons I stated.

I posted the statistics to show that children do die from being left in cars.

You consider this is not a case of child endangerment with respect to the circumstances of the incident.

However, it seems to me, this approach is conditional. Certain conditions negate or justify the risks. Weighing up a situation to choose the lesser risk. eg: Not taking your child out in the cold weather.

Sure, it is a judgement call, but it is still a risk.

Would I take the risk? NO. I wouldn't.

Guess I am from the old school. Being organised as a Parent to see a need, whether that is smokes or buying gas and planning for it in advance to suit my priorities. My first priority is the welfare and safety of my Children.













[edit on 14-12-2007 by Thurisaz]

Kids die of a million things.

They die in un-monitered pools. Sometimes in monitored ones. They die walking down the street, on their way to school. In the school. After school. Riding their bikes. At home. Away from home. In the car. Visiting grandparents. Playing with daddy's gun. Playing with mommie's gun. In wells. In caves. In malls. In hospitals. In the trunks of cars. At their parents hands. At their teacher's hands. At a stranger's hand. At a friends hand.
How are you going to argue that leaving a child sleeping in a locked car on a rainy, sleeting, cold night-20 feet away, while you take a picture, the most irresponsable thing you've ever heard? Good grief! Our kids are going to be neurotic and trembling for their whole life if we don't stand up to fear and live. The police, in this case don't help. They aren't protecting the child by doing this? Noticing what is going on and keeping a good eye on the situation is what they need to do, not create a new situation and then exasperate it.

The "cops are pigs" sentimentality has little place here either. I am good friends with quite a few cops. They aren't all just "Pigs". They are people, trained to react in certain ways to suppress an escalation of chaos, in certain situations. I've seen my friend go from uniformed buddy, to "Cop Mode" in 0.010 of a second. It's training. Training to turn ity on, and when to turn it on and how to turn it off. Some people that don badges and guns don't reserve their "Cop Mode" for just situations that require it. They abuse it. But, it's hardly a number that requires "blanket" labeling like "Pigs suck". I've been arrested a number of times and never did I get tazed, or hit, or coerced.

Ohhhh in a perfect world....

Cuhail

The link provided did not state that the woman was parked in a loading zone. That makes a difference. It appears that the policewoman was tired of seeing irresponsible parents and just overreacted. Without further evidence I can't conclude that it was police brutality (although leaving the older children at WalMart was hardly responsible). Embarrassing as it was to the mother, it's probably better to be overzealous than it is to allow a child to be endangered. I think the couple should get their apology, but I would not want the police to be less vigilant because of it.

Since this is local news for me, I saw an interview with the couple on my morning local Fox news show. They described the whole ordeal from their point of view, and I thought it was genuine. The couple are ... normal, everyday folks. (I think we'd call them "Sheeple, here) They were astounded and shocked at the whole ordeal. They want any charges dropped, a clean slate with DCFS and an apology from the Police Dept. involved. THEY just want their life back. I'm with them. It sucks.

Cuhail

[edit on 12/15/2007 by Cuhail]

reply to post by Cuhail



I think bringing along the dog is an excellent idea (unless its a tiny little rat dog LOL)....and probably a better security system then an alarm or locked doors! We dont have one [right now], but I would feel much better about it having a dog in there w/ her.

Luckily, I never have to go run quick errands (ciggys, etc)....and when I pump gas and she is in the car, I pay at the pump and yes, leave her in the car. Our winters reach -30 during the day. But I never go inside the little gas station shop and leave her there. I just dont feel comfortable doing it. If others do, that is fine.