Ya the mandatory minimum sentence of two years is also batshit insane. If that wasn't the case she might have chosen to fight it, thinking even if she did lose the judge would see how crazy it all is and given her probation.
99% of cases end in plea deals because even if there is a 90% chance you win and are right, you get 10 years in prison if you lose. Instead you could take 3 months for a guilty plea.
While we all know sex trafficking is horrible I feel like it's turned into the Satanic Panic from the 80s all over again. Woman on one of my local facebook pages kept posting about human trafficking awareness and repeatedly stated the FBI ranked us as the number 3 state for trafficking. I tried to do my own research and came up empty handed. I politely asked her where she was getting that information and at first all she would say was "the FBI". I kept asking exactly how/where she was getting that information and she couldn't provide any sources. It seemed like she stopped doing it, but being an alarmist like that and getting innocent people in trouble is pretty fucked up.
But also why are they harassing a mom about the potential for kidnapping and sex trafficking.... Instead OF ACTUALLY going after the kidnappers and sex traffickers......
I live in Texas and was letting my second grader walk a half mile home from school last year when he was seven. Another really stupid thing about Texas law is that when kids are 17 they can’t be considered runaways anymore. If you call the cops to bring them back then nope but you are still responsible for anything that they do until they’re 18. How the hell does that make sense? I had a coworker who was on pins and needles for a year and they celebrated when their daughter finally turned 18 and they didn’t have to worry about it anymore. She kept running off and ended up in Tennessee for a while.
Ohhh. I love the US... the land of the FREE. Where the citizens can live without the tyranny of the government and raise their children however they like.
Ridiculous how Texans are ways talking about freedom and they lock people up for pot, medical procedures and now kids doing what kids have done for decades. Walk home from school or play unattended. They love to shit on California but we have No law against letting your kids not be helicopter parented.
Moral of the story. STFU when talking to police. Get a lawyer. Always plead not-guilty. Always ask for a speedy trial, it is your constitutional right.
oh, yeah, you have to prostrate yourself in front of police and show them all the respect. just fucking agree with everything they say and make sure to call them sir.
But also why are they harassing a mom about the potential for kidnapping and sex trafficking.... Instead OF ACTUALLY going after the kidnappers and sex traffickers......
That's so sad. I know a few people that don't have people in their lives to help them make decisions like this. This lady fell through the education cracks and it shows.
Meanwhile, in Norway parents are discouraged from walking their kids to school so the kids can learn independence. This concept kind of freaked me out when I first moved there from Italy because it's dark out when school starts (and sometimes ends) and those little fuckers are out there crossing roads (with their reflective vests and bands, thankfully) but it was nerve wracking for me as a driver. Newly arrived foreign parents can be seen walking far behind their kids, keeping them in eyesight but far enough to not be walking them.
In Denmark, kids ride or walk to the school in all weather conditions. It will be sideways raining and kids will still be waiting for the friends so they can ride together. They just use reflective gear and lights are mandatory.
Haha was just going to comment this. I moved to Norway 4 years ago and its awesome seeing kids independently going to and from school. For once I'm actually excited to have kids with my wife since that burden is wiped from my day.
Idk why that's sounds sweet and funny lol. I just imagine a Chinese student walking home alone or with their friends, and like a block or two behind are his parents in like some disguise 🥸
I know times are different, but I remember times walking home from grade school (about a mile). I grew up in a small city but most kids 8,9,10 walked home.
When I was a kid, the schoolbus didn't even run within village limits. You literally were required to walk to school, because they didn't do the "parent dropoff line" thing back then. If you lived within ~2 miles of school, you walked or you didn't go.
Yes times are different, we now live in the safest time period in history. We just hear about the "bad stuff" more because of the internet. According to Pew Research, US violent and property crimes have plunged since 1990s, regardless of the data source. FBI statistics, show a drop from 747.1 violent crimes per 100,000 people to 379.4. Bureau of Justice Statistics show a drop from 79.8 violent crimes per 1,000 people to 21. Family and Acquaintance abductions make up about 77% of all abductions. For sexual assault, that percentage is much higher, 93% of child victims of sexual assault knew their attacker (according to RAINN). Meaning you are much more likely to be abducted or sexually assaulted by someone than you know rather than a stranger. Perhaps stranger danger is the least of our worries, and we should focus more on who are children are spending time with.
What happened to the crowd of people that basically grew up without parents even though they lived with them? Y’all know who I’m talking about. Sun up till sun down you wouldn’t see your parents really. I’m not crazy am I?
Called in by moms whistle or telephone of moms whistle. Wasn’t latchkey. We all rode bikes, boards, or rollerbladed/skated everywhere. Miles away. Walked to friends house and to and from school since kindergarten. I sometimes think “I wish I had more help from my parents with my kids, like any help at all” and then I think, they weren’t even really there when I was a kid. They have no idea what they doing. Lol parenting must have been something! As I’m trying to get my kids to go play in their playroom so I can have a few minutes alone of my 24hr parenting shift. Oof. Anyway, we’re here and laughing at this. But it’s Texas. And the state is just full of laugh so I don’t cry things.
That was me, and my three sibs. From 4th grade on. You also didn’t have to wear seat belts or bike helmets. You could ride in the back of a pickup truck. You could bike a few miles with your friends after school. Go to the parks by yourself.
Yup. 40 now - I was walking and riding my bike to school a mile away by the time I was in 2nd grade. No babysitter by the time I was 10 (older sister who was 13 looked after me I guess lol).
My mom would literally drop me off in town with my bike and tell me what time to meet her at the church to go home. I'd ride all over town for a few hours while she ran errands.
I place 100% of the blame on the city and its officers. Old busybodies are always going to exist. Choosing to arrest and choosing to prosecute something so ludicrous are terrible decisions people with power made.
Thats what scares me. My neighbor made a comment on my kids walking home alone (7 & 8 at the time). She could get it in her head one day to call the cops for all I know. But then they would have to look into the 15 other kids they walk back with.
verified it was down the street, and called anyway? that's fucked up. i walked home a half mile every day by myself in elementary school. i bet this neighbor lady hated the kid's mom or something...
A good example of why its important to teach kids not to talk to strangers. If he didn't give the address it would have been a lot harder for the police.
Lol they don't give a fuck about the kid, what they care about is using the legal system to suck as much money as they can out of anyone in the confines of their jurisdiction, and they're ensconced by the fact that the idiots keep voting for them to do it
From age 6 on I walked to school on my own. I usually took the school bus to school, but not always, and came back to home usually by foot, because I played too much after school with my friends who lived close to school. that was ... .8 miles, according to google maps. And many other kids did the same. So... depending on the kid, I think it is entirely possible that the mother did nothing wrong here.
A lot of fearmongering about kids being abducted has caused people to be paranoid. The vast majority of abductions in the USA are by parents, typically during messy custody battles.
Not just Texas. Many governments across the United States have criminalized the very same way people were raised for generations in the name of “stranger danger” and “think of the children.”
For real. Texas: No government! Ignore experts, let the parents decide all education and health. Kids are too weak these days. Stop smothering them. Participation trophies!!1! Also Texas: excuse me, a double digit years kid walking half a mile? Straight to jail!
This is one of the costs of letting mortal panics like LBTG pedo fear mongering run rampant untempered by reality and accurate data. Reality is an under appreciated constraint on the intrusiveness of government that the small government crowd often forgets.
Home when the street lights came on, that was my rule. Though later in the year it would be when the porch light came on since the sky got dark quite early.
So let me get this straight, kid walking home alone a couple blocks is a heinous crime to be punished, but mass murder of adults and children in a school still hasn’t been dealt with?
So usually I see these “bullshit” clickbait titles and think “god what morons believe this shit” but I googled this one and it’s legit, he was kicking off in the car so she asked if he wanted to walk back to calm down, he said yes, there were pavements the rest of the way but some old lady reported him being out there (she even spoke to him so she knew he wanted to walk back). Land of the free eh
These asshole neighbors are the real problem (in addition to a fucked-up system). A good neighbor would just wave to the kids and let the kids know if anything suspicious is happening. Instead, you see these bad neighbors who find the very existence of kids on their own to be suspicious, because they think Law and Order: SVU is a documentary of their everyday lives or something.
Yeah bc a lot of them are also evangelicals and therefore need to control everyone else and everything they do bc if they aren’t allowed to enjoy their lives, then no one should.
It always comes down to "we want government out of our lives for x reason, but for y reason we're kicking down your door and dragging you onto your lawn in cuffs." And as in this case there's not even any provable harm. It's just behavior that some person decided they didn't like.
Yes especially because they sit around and listen to a 24/7 news cycle always telling them they're in danger of being robbed, killed, or having their kids kidnapped into sex trafficking...even though crime is largely the lowest it's been in many ways.
Yes. We have to pay for a bus pass if within 2 miles and most ES schools in the area are within a mile or so. My kid walked to and from school at that age.
My kids biked to school themselves, since they where 5 years old. Its only about 1.5 mile. Very common in Denmark. The school actively tries to discourage parent from driving their kids to school.
its crazy, i was out the door from 10am until dusk. If i wanted to be out after dark I had to come home and ask permission and tell my parents where i was going to be doing.
When I started 1st grade I would wake up, make breakfast & bike 3 miles to school. No one home but me. I would then bike home & no one would be home for a few hours.
The thing with parents all dropping and picking up their kids at school is so weird to me. When I was kid you didn’t get picked up unless you had a doctor’s appointment or something. Half a mile was my daily walk from the nearest school bus stop
When we moved and I started walking home in 5th (~10 years old) with my 4th and 1st grade siblings. We had to walk through a ROUGH area to get to our street. Don't tell anyone, but our parents weren't home for hours either because jobs.
Nope, that's literally all she did. Article I read said the kid was bothering his siblings in the car so the mom made him walk the half a mile back to their house in the suburbs, which he had done before as well. A neighbor saw him, clutched their pearls, and called the police. The police apparently picked him on on the fucking block his house was on. Like, he pointed at his house he was so close.
I lived on the literal edge of my school district and missed the bus one day and my dad made me walk to school, it was about a 5 mile walk and took an hour and a half, carrying the full backpack sucked
Parents don't even let kids ride the bus around here. The local elementary school has cars blocking the road both directions for an hour every day when school gets out. So they cut back the busses to save money, but in doing so they fucked the bus drivers. After covid restrictions were lifted they claimed no one wants to work anymore. Yeah, no one wants to sit in a metal tube full of screeching children for a bunch of 2 hour shift ls that pay $16/hr. Who could have guessed?!
In NYC summers, when I was 8 I hung out on rooftops and sat ontop of car hoods eating icees. I would get home at like 9pm or 10pm and my mom would ask "Where were you?!" and my usual response would be "out".
My parents were always up my ass. Typical helicopter parenting but I swear my parents would have gotten the chair too for allowing me to walk places >1/2 a mile hundreds of times on my own.
In elementary we had three different times kids could leave at the end of the day: Bus riders, Parent Pickup, and Walkers (this included bikes and skateboards). It was completely normal to walk the two miles home from school everyday from like 3rd grade on and I lived in a “bad” area too. People are fucking stupid nowadays
Yeah, I had the cops called on me for letting my kid play at the park alone at 8. I let the DCF officer think that the place I moved from was a very small town and that’s why I thought it was ok. Really it’s ok here too, it’s just suburbs full of old people and law students but I’m not going to argue when my kid is on the line.
If someone’s alleged crime is so serious as to warrant a 20 year sentence, offering a plea of community service is grievously inappropriate. If someone’s alleged crime is so minor as to be correctable with community service, than threatening 20 years is grievously inappropriate.
This is also the state that allows individuals, like say a rapist, to sue anyone they suspect of helping a woman recieve an abortion after making an informed choice with a medical team.
Here's my advice to all people, at all time: NEVER TALK TO THE POLICE. They aren't your friends. They aren't your protectors (affirmed in SCOTUS decisions). They are the thuggish arm of the law reinforced by overworked ADA's that over-charge to get plea deals to please the DAs that stand for election as law-and-order types.
I live in Japan and I'll see 5 year olds walking back and from school all on their own. Even saw one escorting what looked to be their 3 year old sibling. I thought it was crazy at first, but I realize now it's the US that's ridiculous.
It's ironic that the people who boast about having to walk to school 5 miles in the snow uphill both ways, and complain that today's youth have it too easy, are the same people who created these rules punishing parents for giving their child any sort of independence.
After the eighties with disappearances etc people just went nuts and children lost any independence. I feel sorry for her. In NZ we are starting to move back to kids making their way to school again in some places, but it’s still illegal to leave a kid alone up to 14!!!!!
In Japan they have a TV show “Old Enough” where toddlers run errands for their parents at half this age. The series is on Netflix and is worth watching a few episodes. Easy to see how crazy it is for Americans to be so incredibly protective with what they let their kids do and not do.
I ran home a mile from kindergarten at 5 years old. None of the teachers even tried to stop me. Teacher yelled at me and made me cry, I ran. Was my first day of school ever. I remember being so excited to be there, my older brother and sister had already been in school and I was so jealous. I used to do their homework with them because I wanted to go to school so bad. Never again did I want to go to school.
Here in a more civilized part of the world children walk to and from school just fine. I got a free school taxi/bus ride as the road I'd have to walk was too dangerous and those who lived over 2.5 km away or so got a ride too.
When I was in third grade I walked 1.1 miles to school every day by myself. Also walked home every day with my own house key because my parents weren't home from work yet, they wouldn't get home till over an hour later.
If I remember correctly, I walked to and from school everyday, from 1st grade until 10th grade. My junior and senior year, I used public transportation because that school was farther away. I turned out just fine. Too many Karen’s these days, just looking for things to offended by and complain about.
I walked home starting from kindergarten. It was about 3/4 mile. All the kids walked home. I walked part way with friends, as did my brothers, and by the time we got to our street/house, we were together again. No big deal.
Reality is that the kid is probably safer walking home from school then being at school, the way things seem to be looking in the U.S. And it's definitely a hell of a lot safer than being near those cops.
At 8 my commute was 2km to school, i biked in the summer and pushed my bike through snowdrifts in the winter. It was pretty normal. it’s unfortunate that the world we live in now is so dangerous that kids can’t have any sense of independence.
Article linked for your convenience:
Most of this was caused by bad lawmaking. The CPS case was dropped under Texas' "
Ya the mandatory minimum sentence of two years is also batshit insane. If that wasn't the case she might have chosen to fight it, thinking even if she did lose the judge would see how crazy it all is and given her probation.
Surely it’s on the police to make it safe for 8 year old children to walk home. In any good country it would be perfectly safe to do so
The DA should have thrown that shit out.
With such a huge gap between the plea deal consequence and the minimum guilty charge consequence, she never had a fair trial.
This is Waco police. They shot a bunch of bikers and never faced any consequences.
99% of cases end in plea deals because even if there is a 90% chance you win and are right, you get 10 years in prison if you lose. Instead you could take 3 months for a guilty plea.
Interesting... I wonder if the same logic applies to school shootings.
While we all know sex trafficking is horrible I feel like it's turned into the Satanic Panic from the 80s all over again. Woman on one of my local facebook pages kept posting about human trafficking awareness and repeatedly stated the FBI ranked us as the number 3 state for trafficking. I tried to do my own research and came up empty handed. I politely asked her where she was getting that information and at first all she would say was "the FBI". I kept asking exactly how/where she was getting that information and she couldn't provide any sources. It seemed like she stopped doing it, but being an alarmist like that and getting innocent people in trouble is pretty fucked up.
This is a textbook example that proves the point of the obligatory:
This is like imprisoning people in their homes because law enforcement doesn't work. Kinda backwards if you asked me.
Texas lege has no idea how to write laws. This should come as no surprise.
her mistake was saying anything other than her name and that she wants a lawyer
Exactly. The real crime was she didn't kowtow to the cops.
Sounds like yet another case of cops on a self-inflated ego-high, interpreting laws strictly that were never intended to be used that way.
Pleasing guilty to avoid a worse outcome is common in USA. She probably doesn’t have money or time and was worried about losing her job or house.
Boomers: Back in our day we were free range!
That's how they get most people to plea out. They threaten you with the maximum sentence if you lose.
This woman went through more for making a good parenting choice than cops get for killing black people.
Weirdly, I think the entire endangerment case came from this one exchange:
This is nuts lol. In my town lots of kids that age walk home from the elementary school.
This is my experience with Texas and its police with the court system. It's all kinds of fucked up, confusing and why I'm never going back.
Of note, the sex trafficking was from Asian trafficked women through Asian restaurants and a massage parlor.
But also why are they harassing a mom about the potential for kidnapping and sex trafficking.... Instead OF ACTUALLY going after the kidnappers and sex traffickers......
In most other places, it would be batshit insane, but this is Texas, and they grow the Stupid.
American conservatives have this weird obsession with "sex trafficking" which they can almost never provide actual concrete examples of
Also, when could it ever be illegal to say “I don’t know”?
I live in Texas and was letting my second grader walk a half mile home from school last year when he was seven. Another really stupid thing about Texas law is that when kids are 17 they can’t be considered runaways anymore. If you call the cops to bring them back then nope but you are still responsible for anything that they do until they’re 18. How the hell does that make sense? I had a coworker who was on pins and needles for a year and they celebrated when their daughter finally turned 18 and they didn’t have to worry about it anymore. She kept running off and ended up in Tennessee for a while.
And the rest of it was caused by a busybody neighbor.
Ohhh. I love the US... the land of the FREE. Where the citizens can live without the tyranny of the government and raise their children however they like.
Ridiculous how Texans are ways talking about freedom and they lock people up for pot, medical procedures and now kids doing what kids have done for decades. Walk home from school or play unattended. They love to shit on California but we have No law against letting your kids not be helicopter parented.
Fully 100% of this seems to be caused by bad lawmaking lol
Moral of the story. STFU when talking to police. Get a lawyer. Always plead not-guilty. Always ask for a speedy trial, it is your constitutional right.
Waco
oh, yeah, you have to prostrate yourself in front of police and show them all the respect. just fucking agree with everything they say and make sure to call them sir.
But also why are they harassing a mom about the potential for kidnapping and sex trafficking.... Instead OF ACTUALLY going after the kidnappers and sex traffickers......
That's so sad. I know a few people that don't have people in their lives to help them make decisions like this. This lady fell through the education cracks and it shows.
His life will be so much easier now that his mother has no income.
And he has no home to walk home to
Fucking dumbass judges
Meanwhile, in Norway parents are discouraged from walking their kids to school so the kids can learn independence. This concept kind of freaked me out when I first moved there from Italy because it's dark out when school starts (and sometimes ends) and those little fuckers are out there crossing roads (with their reflective vests and bands, thankfully) but it was nerve wracking for me as a driver. Newly arrived foreign parents can be seen walking far behind their kids, keeping them in eyesight but far enough to not be walking them.
In Denmark, kids ride or walk to the school in all weather conditions. It will be sideways raining and kids will still be waiting for the friends so they can ride together. They just use reflective gear and lights are mandatory.
To be fair Norway is a hell of a lot safer than just about anywhere in the US
In Japan, first graders commute solo by train, sometimes over an hour as a rite of passage.
Haha was just going to comment this. I moved to Norway 4 years ago and its awesome seeing kids independently going to and from school. For once I'm actually excited to have kids with my wife since that burden is wiped from my day.
Norway has more pedestrian-friendly walking infrastructure… and less pedophiles and mass murder.
Children do need to learn independence and their environment.
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Idk why that's sounds sweet and funny lol. I just imagine a Chinese student walking home alone or with their friends, and like a block or two behind are his parents in like some disguise 🥸
Norway just gets cooler and cooler the more I hear about it lol. Place just seems like a great place to live
I know times are different, but I remember times walking home from grade school (about a mile). I grew up in a small city but most kids 8,9,10 walked home.
When I was a kid, the schoolbus didn't even run within village limits. You literally were required to walk to school, because they didn't do the "parent dropoff line" thing back then. If you lived within ~2 miles of school, you walked or you didn't go.
Yes times are different, we now live in the safest time period in history. We just hear about the "bad stuff" more because of the internet. According to Pew Research, US violent and property crimes have plunged since 1990s, regardless of the data source. FBI statistics, show a drop from 747.1 violent crimes per 100,000 people to 379.4. Bureau of Justice Statistics show a drop from 79.8 violent crimes per 1,000 people to 21. Family and Acquaintance abductions make up about 77% of all abductions. For sexual assault, that percentage is much higher, 93% of child victims of sexual assault knew their attacker (according to RAINN). Meaning you are much more likely to be abducted or sexually assaulted by someone than you know rather than a stranger. Perhaps stranger danger is the least of our worries, and we should focus more on who are children are spending time with.
Was just thinking that we did that all the time growing up. All of us did. It was just normal.
Uphill both ways. No but seriously I'm only 30 and when I went to school we were walking about 10-15 minute everyday
What happened to the crowd of people that basically grew up without parents even though they lived with them? Y’all know who I’m talking about. Sun up till sun down you wouldn’t see your parents really. I’m not crazy am I?
"Latchkey children" is the term you're looking for, I think.
Called in by moms whistle or telephone of moms whistle. Wasn’t latchkey. We all rode bikes, boards, or rollerbladed/skated everywhere. Miles away. Walked to friends house and to and from school since kindergarten. I sometimes think “I wish I had more help from my parents with my kids, like any help at all” and then I think, they weren’t even really there when I was a kid. They have no idea what they doing. Lol parenting must have been something! As I’m trying to get my kids to go play in their playroom so I can have a few minutes alone of my 24hr parenting shift. Oof. Anyway, we’re here and laughing at this. But it’s Texas. And the state is just full of laugh so I don’t cry things.
That was me, and my three sibs. From 4th grade on. You also didn’t have to wear seat belts or bike helmets. You could ride in the back of a pickup truck. You could bike a few miles with your friends after school. Go to the parks by yourself.
those are the overbearing parents now for some odd reason.
Yup. 40 now - I was walking and riding my bike to school a mile away by the time I was in 2nd grade. No babysitter by the time I was 10 (older sister who was 13 looked after me I guess lol).
My mom would literally drop me off in town with my bike and tell me what time to meet her at the church to go home. I'd ride all over town for a few hours while she ran errands.
I place 100% of the blame on the city and its officers. Old busybodies are always going to exist. Choosing to arrest and choosing to prosecute something so ludicrous are terrible decisions people with power made.
Thats what scares me. My neighbor made a comment on my kids walking home alone (7 & 8 at the time). She could get it in her head one day to call the cops for all I know. But then they would have to look into the 15 other kids they walk back with.
As a parent this is just geniuely scary to me. These kind of people
verified it was down the street, and called anyway? that's fucked up. i walked home a half mile every day by myself in elementary school. i bet this neighbor lady hated the kid's mom or something...
A good example of why its important to teach kids not to talk to strangers. If he didn't give the address it would have been a lot harder for the police.
Too harsh. They did more damage to that kid than that walk was ever likely to
So now that kid may never have a stable home ever again. I’m so glad people were protecting the kid. /s
Lol they don't give a fuck about the kid, what they care about is using the legal system to suck as much money as they can out of anyone in the confines of their jurisdiction, and they're ensconced by the fact that the idiots keep voting for them to do it
From age 6 on I walked to school on my own. I usually took the school bus to school, but not always, and came back to home usually by foot, because I played too much after school with my friends who lived close to school. that was ... .8 miles, according to google maps. And many other kids did the same. So... depending on the kid, I think it is entirely possible that the mother did nothing wrong here.
Literally anything is too harsh. I was walking and biking around town on my own all the time at that age.
No kidding, I wouldn’t be surprised if that kid never wanted to walk anywhere alone again. Now that the one time it happened his life fell apart.
Why would the walk do any damage? I used to walk about that far to and from school at that age. Perfectly healthy.
A lot of fearmongering about kids being abducted has caused people to be paranoid. The vast majority of abductions in the USA are by parents, typically during messy custody battles.
Let your kid walk home by himself, Texas freaks out.
Was the kid armed? See the issue it’s the walk, it’s the unarmed walk. If the kid had a shotgun this would have been fine.
It's such a fucked up state...
Land of the free, home of the brave...
Maybe she let the kid walk home by himself unarmed, which is why they’re so shocked
Wow Texas. How very draconianly big government of you.
Not just Texas. Many governments across the United States have criminalized the very same way people were raised for generations in the name of “stranger danger” and “think of the children.”
For real. Texas: No government! Ignore experts, let the parents decide all education and health. Kids are too weak these days. Stop smothering them. Participation trophies!!1! Also Texas: excuse me, a double digit years kid walking half a mile? Straight to jail!
Probably it’s because they’re afraid of kids getting shot but don’t want to address the real issue here
This is one of the costs of letting mortal panics like LBTG pedo fear mongering run rampant untempered by reality and accurate data. Reality is an under appreciated constraint on the intrusiveness of government that the small government crowd often forgets.
It's ok. They were liberals. /s
This is the worst part of the whole story for me.
How about if you’re concerned walk the kiddo home instead of calling the cops. I don’t understand the logic at all.
I was out all day playing at 8. Wtf
Home when the street lights came on, that was my rule. Though later in the year it would be when the porch light came on since the sky got dark quite early.
So let me get this straight, kid walking home alone a couple blocks is a heinous crime to be punished, but mass murder of adults and children in a school still hasn’t been dealt with?
Makes sense /s
So usually I see these “bullshit” clickbait titles and think “god what morons believe this shit” but I googled this one and it’s legit, he was kicking off in the car so she asked if he wanted to walk back to calm down, he said yes, there were pavements the rest of the way but some old lady reported him being out there (she even spoke to him so she knew he wanted to walk back). Land of the free eh
i swear half of the elderly has nothing better to do than to judge and cause drama.
These asshole neighbors are the real problem (in addition to a fucked-up system). A good neighbor would just wave to the kids and let the kids know if anything suspicious is happening. Instead, you see these bad neighbors who find the very existence of kids on their own to be suspicious, because they think Law and Order: SVU is a documentary of their everyday lives or something.
Oh man, I wonder if the parents went to talk to those neighbors? I’d have some words with them.
These people in the "government stay out of our lives" states are very much in everybody's lives eh?
Yeah bc a lot of them are also evangelicals and therefore need to control everyone else and everything they do bc if they aren’t allowed to enjoy their lives, then no one should.
It always comes down to "we want government out of our lives for x reason, but for y reason we're kicking down your door and dragging you onto your lawn in cuffs." And as in this case there's not even any provable harm. It's just behavior that some person decided they didn't like.
Yes especially because they sit around and listen to a 24/7 news cycle always telling them they're in danger of being robbed, killed, or having their kids kidnapped into sex trafficking...even though crime is largely the lowest it's been in many ways.
I’m going to move to Texas so that I can got vote for Texas to leave the union. And then move back.
You see if you play both sides you can’t loose
I belive you'd be doing that backwards: a US state cannot unilaterally secede, secession is only possible with the consent of the other states.
I can see that kid's life improving substantially from now on now that the mother lost her home and job.
I started walking home when I was 7-8… what?! Guess he needed to have a gun for it to be ok in Texas.
Former Texas resident checking in - you forgot the cowboy hat and Bible. Can't be walking the rough streets of Waco without those.
Don't schools refuse transportation to kids who live within a certain radius and require them to walk?
Yes. We have to pay for a bus pass if within 2 miles and most ES schools in the area are within a mile or so. My kid walked to and from school at that age.
Meanwhile in Indonesia kids 5-10 y.o going alone to school, to market, to forest, and fishing at river.... Jezzz
My kids biked to school themselves, since they where 5 years old. Its only about 1.5 mile. Very common in Denmark. The school actively tries to discourage parent from driving their kids to school.
The fuck? I used to walk like...a mile and a half to elementary school in 2nd grade. Frequently alone. Seems absurd.
I feel like there has to be more going on here
Yep, just as stupid as it sounds. Worse.
So I actually messaged the mother on LinkedIn because I didn’t trust the original source that was posted yesterday on
You know it’s safer than ever before for everyone and yet we are more scared today than any generation before.
its crazy, i was out the door from 10am until dusk. If i wanted to be out after dark I had to come home and ask permission and tell my parents where i was going to be doing.
So much for Free Range parenting.
When I started 1st grade I would wake up, make breakfast & bike 3 miles to school. No one home but me. I would then bike home & no one would be home for a few hours.
Meanwhile, kids in NYC take the subway alone at that age with zero issues.
The thing with parents all dropping and picking up their kids at school is so weird to me. When I was kid you didn’t get picked up unless you had a doctor’s appointment or something. Half a mile was my daily walk from the nearest school bus stop
When we moved and I started walking home in 5th (~10 years old) with my 4th and 1st grade siblings. We had to walk through a ROUGH area to get to our street. Don't tell anyone, but our parents weren't home for hours either because jobs.
Losing a home and family income will do far more harm to the kid than a short stroll home.
Land of the free. SURE....
That was before Texas existed
can't walk home alone, but still reserve the right to be murdered in their classroom.
Stay classy Texas..
Texas really hates women and children.
I let my son walk home from school when he was 9 (Queens, NY)
America is a shithole
I feel like there’s gotta be more. Lol my fuckin parents made me walk home every damn day, and it was a hellova lot further than half a mile.
And the kid wasn't like forced, I believe he was told to go walk to "blow off some steam" or something after bugging his siblings
Nope, that's literally all she did. Article I read said the kid was bothering his siblings in the car so the mom made him walk the half a mile back to their house in the suburbs, which he had done before as well. A neighbor saw him, clutched their pearls, and called the police. The police apparently picked him on on the fucking block his house was on. Like, he pointed at his house he was so close.
I lived on the literal edge of my school district and missed the bus one day and my dad made me walk to school, it was about a 5 mile walk and took an hour and a half, carrying the full backpack sucked
That's it, although she wouldn't have been arrested if there hadn't been a mild "contempt of cop" action involved.
Parents don't even let kids ride the bus around here. The local elementary school has cars blocking the road both directions for an hour every day when school gets out. So they cut back the busses to save money, but in doing so they fucked the bus drivers. After covid restrictions were lifted they claimed no one wants to work anymore. Yeah, no one wants to sit in a metal tube full of screeching children for a bunch of 2 hour shift ls that pay $16/hr. Who could have guessed?!
In NYC summers, when I was 8 I hung out on rooftops and sat ontop of car hoods eating icees. I would get home at like 9pm or 10pm and my mom would ask "Where were you?!" and my usual response would be "out".
My parents were always up my ass. Typical helicopter parenting but I swear my parents would have gotten the chair too for allowing me to walk places >1/2 a mile hundreds of times on my own.
Wtf. In the 2000's I walked to school. 5 miles. I'd be out all day before cell phones became a thing.
That’s insane. I hope she takes it up with the state court. She should sue the city.
Since she pleaded guilty she probably can't anymore. They scared her with the possibility of jail time and she didn't know her rights.
There goes Texas again protecting all those freedoms we keep hearing about.
In elementary we had three different times kids could leave at the end of the day: Bus riders, Parent Pickup, and Walkers (this included bikes and skateboards). It was completely normal to walk the two miles home from school everyday from like 3rd grade on and I lived in a “bad” area too. People are fucking stupid nowadays
‘The officer then asked Wallace whether she would let her son walk home again, now that she knew about the sex trafficking.
Yeah, I had the cops called on me for letting my kid play at the park alone at 8. I let the DCF officer think that the place I moved from was a very small town and that’s why I thought it was ok. Really it’s ok here too, it’s just suburbs full of old people and law students but I’m not going to argue when my kid is on the line.
We don't really have checks and balances when the bad day of a police officer can ruin someone's life
We want to protect this child so we're... dehoming his mother and removing her money supply.
If someone’s alleged crime is so serious as to warrant a 20 year sentence, offering a plea of community service is grievously inappropriate. If someone’s alleged crime is so minor as to be correctable with community service, than threatening 20 years is grievously inappropriate.
You’re not allowed to make them walk, if they are going to be gunned down in Texas it has to be At school not on the way home.
man watching that japanese shows where kids do chores really saddens me because they have walkable cities
This is also the state that allows individuals, like say a rapist, to sue anyone they suspect of helping a woman recieve an abortion after making an informed choice with a medical team.
Here's my advice to all people, at all time: NEVER TALK TO THE POLICE. They aren't your friends. They aren't your protectors (affirmed in SCOTUS decisions). They are the thuggish arm of the law reinforced by overworked ADA's that over-charge to get plea deals to please the DAs that stand for election as law-and-order types.
Texas, the freedom state, where if you let your child walk home you get arrested and berated by the cops.
Trying to raise snowflakes in Texas. What a bunch of beta conservatives.
I live in Japan and I'll see 5 year olds walking back and from school all on their own. Even saw one escorting what looked to be their 3 year old sibling. I thought it was crazy at first, but I realize now it's the US that's ridiculous.
Yeah, I think I'll stay in Commiefornia instead of experiencing this brand of Texas "freedom".
When I was eight I always walked to and from school myself.
Meanwhile, the Amish kids who live in my area are walking alone about 2-3 miles to school on a daily basis. Rain, snow, sun, ice, whatever.
Conservatives love their momy state, don't they?
[удалено]
I used to ride my bike and walk to school at 8. All over the area really.
Here’s the full story:
Kids probably safer on the street than in a Texas public school
It's ironic that the people who boast about having to walk to school 5 miles in the snow uphill both ways, and complain that today's youth have it too easy, are the same people who created these rules punishing parents for giving their child any sort of independence.
After the eighties with disappearances etc people just went nuts and children lost any independence. I feel sorry for her. In NZ we are starting to move back to kids making their way to school again in some places, but it’s still illegal to leave a kid alone up to 14!!!!!
In Japan they have a TV show “Old Enough” where toddlers run errands for their parents at half this age. The series is on Netflix and is worth watching a few episodes. Easy to see how crazy it is for Americans to be so incredibly protective with what they let their kids do and not do.
Why do people live in Texas at this point?
I walked half a mile home daily when I was 9, during the wintrer with 2 feet of snow, I live in Sweden.
So now the kid has to walk the streets anyway? Since they are homeless
Americans are idiots
So much "freedom" down there. Wow! (/s)
lAnD 0f DuH FreEeEee
Let me tell you about the 80’s.
What?! A half mile?! Oh no! The neglect! s/
Gee, I can't imagine why women are having fewer children than ever! /s
If only Texas cared as much about 8 year olds getting gunned down in school than they do about 8 year olds walking 10 minutes to that same school.
It is so weird to see which battles Texas will choose in regard to child safety
Shaking violently in European
I had CPS called on me for letting my kids play in the ankle deep stream in my own back yard. With walkie talkies
I hate how anytime in public there’s someone watching and waiting to report you for something
I ran home a mile from kindergarten at 5 years old. None of the teachers even tried to stop me. Teacher yelled at me and made me cry, I ran. Was my first day of school ever. I remember being so excited to be there, my older brother and sister had already been in school and I was so jealous. I used to do their homework with them because I wanted to go to school so bad. Never again did I want to go to school.
Here in a more civilized part of the world children walk to and from school just fine. I got a free school taxi/bus ride as the road I'd have to walk was too dangerous and those who lived over 2.5 km away or so got a ride too.
When I was in third grade I walked 1.1 miles to school every day by myself. Also walked home every day with my own house key because my parents weren't home from work yet, they wouldn't get home till over an hour later.
what? in Iceland kids walk alone all the time even for hours the only time its bad is when there is a blizzard
If I remember correctly, I walked to and from school everyday, from 1st grade until 10th grade. My junior and senior year, I used public transportation because that school was farther away. I turned out just fine. Too many Karen’s these days, just looking for things to offended by and complain about.
I walked home starting from kindergarten. It was about 3/4 mile. All the kids walked home. I walked part way with friends, as did my brothers, and by the time we got to our street/house, we were together again. No big deal.
Bro...where I live literally everyone does that, kinda mindblowing seeing how in a different cultuere that would put you in jail.
Reality is that the kid is probably safer walking home from school then being at school, the way things seem to be looking in the U.S. And it's definitely a hell of a lot safer than being near those cops.
This country is a fucking joke.
Not just the USA. Here in Canada a parent was charged because she allowed her teenager to take public transit alone. Madness.
Bruh, what even is America at this point?
At 8 my commute was 2km to school, i biked in the summer and pushed my bike through snowdrifts in the winter. It was pretty normal. it’s unfortunate that the world we live in now is so dangerous that kids can’t have any sense of independence.
How ridiculous. I feel so bad for the mother.
Maybe if they actually made the streets safer and actually suitable for human life the stigma would go away and we could actually let kids go outside
great job america! let trump carry on scot free for a coup attempt & insurrection… but way to crack down on single moms with kids! 🤪