I’m guessing there’s more to this story...
If this is accurate, The cops are gonna pay.....and pay....and pay
What country was this in?
It couldn’t be in MY America................
A nebby neighborhood busybody did this...
I bet they were a neighborhood watch nazi or HOA butthole.
I hope she bankrupts the cops and this “neighbor”.
And>>>>>>> Since when is it a crime to let your kids play outside unsupervised? If that were they case, my entire neighborhood would have been behind bars when I was a kid.
I too believe there is more to the story.
The police may have a case since the two kids are under the age of being able to ride the bike licensed. IF they were riding in the street and not on their own property then she would be in violation of allowing underage kids riding a motor vehicle in the road. I know this is against the law. I got busted for it back in the 70s when me and some friends were riding my minibike from our yard into the street in front of my house and back into my yard. The cops stopped by to tell my dad that we can’t cross the sidewalk or we would be breaking the law by taking an unlicensed vehicle into a roadway and that we would need to have drivers licenses to do so. We didn’t get arrested or ticketed but we did get warned. As should this woman have been if this is what happened.
“ages 9 and 6, were riding their motorized scooters in the street”
6?
this peasant..you see ..was “stay at home Mom”
that’s all you need to know about the situation. she’s “supposed’ to be out at work..contributing to the Feds tax coffers ..and putting her kids in subsidized public school and day care. /s
Can't happen? Every time a nonsense ticket is issued so some jerkwater burg can buy the mayor a new car...
Ask Nicolae Ceaușescu how he spent his Christmas in 1989, or Moamar Quadafy if his hemorrhoids are better...
This link references the story along with another story, but offers no new information. I think this link gets something wrong, because it says "a few days ago", but the current story is she is suing, not that this just happened: Children at Play Parents Criminalization
Here's a couple of more links. Not much more information: Mom arrested
All I could find was that the charges were dropped, but the police stand by their actions.
My opinion: We have a he-said/she-said situation. The woman claims she was watching the entire time. The neighbor said she wasn't. The police would interview both, and decide who seemed more truthful. The inclination would be to believe the neighbor, who on the face of it doesn't have a clear motive for lying, while the mother would be expected to lie in order to keep from being arrested.
That has nothing to do with who I think is telling the truth; just how you'd expect police to think, if it wasn't clear from the interviews that someone was lying (changing story, getting details wrong, etc.).
Remember, all we know HERE is the woman's statement made NOW, when she is suing. We don't know what she said to police, we have no way of knowing if she is telling the truth here. For all we know she confessed to stepping inside to get a drink, or use the bathroom. Or she changed her story several times.
All we know is what she is telling us now. And she is suing. So she again has some reason to paint things in her favor.
The police say they ocntacted the district attorney, so there is a contemporaneous record, and probably police reports. If we could see them, we'd have a better chance at understanding.
Last point: I don't think there is any jurisdiction where it is actually LEGAL for children to play in a public street. We all assume that cul-de-sacs are free for play, but the police can pretty much come and run you off anytime they want. Streets are for cars, not kids playing.
That makes perfect sense, from the safety perspective. I know we all played in the street. But if she tries to argue this, I bet there is a law they can charge her with that will land her back in jail.
I presume "motorized scooters" were those plastic things with 12-volt batteries, because she'd definitely get arrested if she allowed a 6-year-old to drive a REAL motorized vehicle in the street.
ON the more general question — six is a bit young to be unsupervised, but on your own property it’s nobody’s business. Once they are in the street, things can get murky. I would have allowed my 9-year-old and 6-year-old to ride their bikes around the neighborhood; that would put them in the street, and unsupervised.
So I still think there might be more to this story. Maybe the fact that they were in the street on short scooters, maybe darting around parked cars, put them at risk for being hit by cars who might not see them.
Last point. Things have definitely changed. In my day, a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old would have walked to school together, maybe for a half-mile. That puts them in the street (my neighborhood had no sidewalks), unsupervised, and well away from home.
Nowadays, it seems we bus a lot more kids, and only those who live almost within sight of the elementary schools can walk there. I don’t know if 9-year-olds would be allowed to walk further or not.
“...riding their motorized scooters...”
It sounds like they were driving the neigbors crazy with the noise, so someone called the police.
Good for them.
Wait just a minute. I used to be a CPS worker in TX. If anything, this is a CPS case, not a police case. In CPS, it would be promptly closed as unfounded, if even taken in the first place. No way should the police come anywhere near it. Dispatch should have referred the caller to CPS. If it got past dispatch, the officers should have known better. To go to the extent as to throw her in jail, I-don’t-think-so. There needs to be some serious public apologies and calling the chief on the carpet or a swift boot kick out the door if this is his policy.
OTOH, perhaps there much more to the story than what is being told here.
In her complaint, Cooper says she lives on a “quiet, suburban cul de sac” and “often allows her 6- and 9-year-old children to ride their scooters on the street while she watches from a chair in the driveway or through the large windows on the front of her house.”