YODA CAT!
Posted on 03/12/2008 10:51:51 AM PDT by LibWhacker
CHICAGO (AP) — Treffly Coyne was out of her car for just minutes and no more than 10 yards away.
But that was long and far enough to land her in court after a police officer spotted her sleeping 2-year-old daughter alone in the vehicle; Coyne had taken her two older daughters to pour $8.29 in coins into a Salvation Army kettle.
Minutes later, she was under arrest — the focus of both a police investigation and a probe by the state's child welfare agency. Now the case that has become an Internet flash point for people who either blast police for overstepping their authority or Coyne for putting a child in danger.
The 36-year-old suburban mother is preparing to go on trial Thursday on misdemeanor charges of child endangerment and obstructing a peace officer. If convicted, she could be sentenced to a year in jail and fined $2,500, even though child welfare workers found no credible evidence of abuse or neglect.
On Dec. 8 Coyne decided to drive to Wal-Mart in the Chicago suburb of Crestwood so her children and a young friend could donate the coins they'd collected at her husband's office.
Even as she buckled 2-year-old Phoebe into the car, the girl was asleep. When Coyne arrived at the store, she found a spot to park in a loading zone, right behind someone tying a Christmas tree onto a car.
"It's sleeting out, it's not pleasant, I don't want to disturb her, wake her up," Coyne said this week. "It was safer to leave her in the safety and warmth of an alarmed car than take her."
So Coyne switched on the emergency flashers, locked the car, activated the alarm and walked the other children to the bell ringer.
She snapped a few pictures of the girls donating money and headed back to the car. But a community service officer blocked her way.
"She was on a tirade, she was yelling at me," Coyne said. The officer, Coyne said, didn't want to hear about how close Coyne was, how she never set foot inside the store and was just there to let the kids donate money, or how she could always see her car.
Coyne telephoned her husband, Tim Janecyk, who advised her not to say anything else to police until he arrived. So Coyne declined to talk further, refusing even to tell police her child's name.
When Janecyk pulled up, his wife already was handcuffed, sitting in a patrol car.
Crestwood Police Chief Timothy Sulikowski declined to comment about the case. But he did not dispute the contention that Coyne parked nearby or was away from her car for just a few minutes.
He did, however, suggest Coyne put her child at risk.
"A minute or two, that's when things can happen," he said.
Talk about the case has intensified, particularly online, where bloggers are weighing in on various message boards.
Many have harsh words for the police department, calling the arrest of a mother who left her child in a locked car for a few minutes an abuse of authority.
Yet statistics show thousands of children are injured and dozens die every year after being left unattended near or inside vehicles.
"I am talking tens of thousands of people who leave their kids in the car for any period of time all around America," said Janette Fennell, founder and president of Kansas-based Kids and Cars. "People don't appreciate the dangers of leaving a child alone in the car."
Coyne's attorney, Michelle Forbes, argued that Coyne did not break the law any more than a mother who parks in front of a school in a rainstorm and leaves an infant in the car as she runs a few feet to pick up another child.
"As long as the car is not out of her sight, then the child is not unattended," she said.
Coyne and her husband believe she is unfairly being lumped in with parents who put their children's lives at risk.
"If I were going on a shopping spree then, yes, I would deserve arrest," Coyne said. "I was standing right there. I never went into the store.
"I'm a great parent."
This wasn't a cop at all. It was a "community service officer," probably looking for cars illegally parked at Blue Curb spaces.
YODA CAT!
Me too Spotbust...see my post at 137!
You better come and arrest me NOW!
Even without that, unless the officer is willing to outright lie, I don't see anything resembling probable cause sufficient for an arrest, much less an indictment. If a police officer identifies himself, showing ID, and acts in a fashion that should get the attention of anyone who's actually watching the child, and ten minutes of a such attention fail to elicit any response, then that would constitute a prima facie case that the child was left unattended for more than ten minutes. If a cop arrives on scene to notice a baby apparently unattended, but the mother shows up less than ten minutes later, the cop has no way of knowing how long the baby was unattended and thus no cause for arrest. If the cop thinks there might be security footage, take down the plate number, ask the store for the footage, and seek a warrant later if justified. But to make an arrest without even a prima facie case is just plain wrong.
Yeah. When we were coming home on Sunday evenings, my dad used to let me sit on his lap and ‘steer’!!!
“I think I see what the problem is.”
“Me too.”
Me three.
Why? Except when weather is extreme (and if the keys are not in the car, so the kids can't start it up and go anywhere) what exactly is the big threat that is different than kids unattended anywhere, like a park for instance. And doesn't the place the car is parked determine completely whether there is any appreciable risk to the child at all?
Don't you think the kids are safer in the car than following you around the parking lot where they could stray into the path of an inattentive driver?
Don't you think the kids are safer in the car than following you around the parking lot where they could stray into the path of an inattentive driver? What exactly is the danger they face in the car while you park the cart?
Well her picture might explain it. Twenty some years ago when I lived in N.O. there was a rash of arrests in some nearby suburb of women in bathrobes dropping their kids off at school without their drivers licenses. They were taken in, strip searched with who knows who watching via closed circuit cameras or just via a peep hole. The chief had to put a stop to this after many citizen, ie husband, complaints.
Not in America. Not anymore. We have thousands of actuarials and risk management professionals who assure us that the introduction of a mere percentage point of risk is actual damage, as well.
I was thinking the same thing.
"Right now they're are all at the the County Welfare Agency. No, you can't see them." (sarc)
Lunatics are controlling us!
A mere percentage point = big danger.
Of course! Just look at the millions of people who have died from second-hand smoke. (sarc)
If the parent is not able to view the child in the car they are placing that child in jeapardy, even if nothing bad happens. That IMHO is irresponsible. But, I don’t draw the line at just leaving a child unattended in a car. Young children left unattended anywhere shows poor judgement on the part of the parent. There is also an age factor that was not previoulsy discussed. The younger the child the greater the potential risk.
I’m not sure why the place the car is parked is a consideration here. A young woman was recently shot and killed by a man who attempted to rob her in a busy parking lot. Leaving a child in a car in a busy parking lot is no guarantee of the child’s safety.
Please keep in mind that in this particular case the mother, based on her version of the event, was only around 30 feet from the car, the car was always in her view, it was parked up near the entrance to the store, and it was locked. Thus, I have no problem with what this woman did. I refer to parents who leave a young child in a car, locked or not, and go into the place of business where they do not have any view of that vehicle or their child, and have no way to respond were a situation to arise.
I found an interesting list of "complaints" about the Crestwood PD in one of their forums:
ALLEGATIONS AGAINST THE CRESTWOOD POLICE AND VILLAGE GOVERNMENT
1. Abuse of Authority by the CSO Angel Brudnicki.
2. Sergent Cuikaj threatens a witness in the Walmart.
3. Illegal traffic stops by employees of the Crestwood Police.
4. Not filling out stop sheets as required by Illinois law.
5. Covering up crimes by their own officers.
6. Shooting up a residents house with paintball guns.
7. Public identification and intimidation of witnesses in cases they brought up.
8. Stealing real estate signs from residents homes in the middle of the night.
9. Police taking down political signs of people who opposed the Stranczek administration.
10. Sexual harassment of employees. This employee was fired after the inappropriate relationship became known to the Mayors wife.
11. This employee was the “winner” of a new car raffled off at the Paragon restaurant where the tickets were pulled by the Mayor, Chester Stranczek.
12. Child Molestation by the Juvenile Officer. A man previously charged with child molestation had the charges reduced and was rehired by the PD and then made the Juvenile Officer.
13. Tampering with evidence. Missing money.
14. Trafficking in weapons used in a homicide, taken from evidence lockup.
15. Guns from evidence lock up were thrown in the garbage.
16. Abuse of federal and state grant money for in car computers in the police cars.
17. Police chief did not pass his police exam.
18. A police commissioner is the defacto owner of a bar in Crestwood.
19. A police commissioner has a federal felony conviction.
20. A police commissioner owns a towing company that profits from police tows in the village.
21. The Mayor knew about illegal gambling machines in that bar and threatened its defacto owner with loss of his liquor license if he embarrassed the mayor by getting caught with these machines again. The PD was allegedly tipped off by a county officer that a raid was about to be executed.
22. The village overlooks abuse of the liquor license by this bar i.e. opening and closing time.
23. Chief Tom Scully used to bring his teenage child to felony stops as a ride along in his police car.
24. Officers having known affairs were allowed to work together on the same shift.
25. The lockup is not and cannot be state certified by the Dept. of Corrections.
26. There is no FCC license for the police radio station. 27. Officers regularly use the sideband or other unauthorized frequencies to avoid being recorded in their radio transmissions.
28. There was bid rigging on the lease for the cell phone towers in the village.
29. The “Stranczek Scholarship Fund.”
30. Preferential treatment for real estate deals owned by insiders.
31. Drug use by Officers of the Crestwood PD.
32. Hiring “irregularities” in the Crestwood PD.
33. Not posting accurate crime statistics for the village.
34. The Mayor instructed PD not to give traffic tickets to residents.
35. The PD interfered with Cook County Sherriff’s doing traffic stops in Crestwood.
36. Accepting free goods or services by village business’.
37. Officers with police lighting and radios installed in their personal vehicles.
38. Former Chief Scully had fake college degrees.
Regarding #15 above, apparently a gun that was supposed to be locked up as evidence found its way into the hands of a Chicago gang member and it was used in a murder in Chicago. They claim it was thrown in the garbage but who knows how it really ended up where it did?
Link to story on dropping charges
Link to list of allegations about PD
Even if only a portion of the allegations are correct, this town has some issues.
Oh my goodness. I was reading some info on this, after googling her name, and it seems this thing is just outta control.
The police report states that Angel B (the rent-a-cop) said that she watched this woman go from her car to the kettle and back to the car with her other little girls and their friend! It took 3-4 minutes.
She watched the whole thing? Then this is bull—pure and simple. When the mother returned to the car, the CSO stood in her path and started screaming at her. The little girls were terrified. The mother gave the cop (yes, the CSO’s boyfriend) her driver’s license and said that she didn’t want to say anything until her husband arrived. So they cuffed her and put her in the back of the squad car. When he arrived, they threatened to throw him in jail as well, as he said that she should be fined for parking in the fire lane, but the rest was a horrible misunderstanding. The police put the baby in the cruiser and left her in there for an hour with the squad idling. Nice. Fortunately, the baby slept through the whole thing.
And both the mother and the father (who worked nearby and came immediately) kept telling them that they had little girls (ages 9 and 8) with them that ran inside the store (probably thought they were going to be arrested, too), and THEY IGNORED them.
The family looks forward to the release of the Wal Mart securtiy tape that, the husband says, will show that the baby was never in any danger, was always within eye and earshot of mom, and that the police were way out of line.
After reading statements from the husband, who felt powerless that he was unable to protect his family, this whole thing stinks to high heaven.
Now that I am all pissed off, it is time to go to bed. Yeah, that is going to work. **grrrr**
Even as she buckled 2-year-old Phoebe into the car, the girl was asleep.
and later,
It's sleeting out, it's not pleasant; I don't want to disturb her, wake her up.
Now, really. With that in mind, why did she risk "disturbing" the baby to put her in the car in the first place? To top it off, she took all four children out in sleeting weather to accomplish something which could be done under better circumstances (better weather conditions and an awake Sophie.)
Mom did not use her best judgement IMO, and that puts her in the same boat with every other human being!
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