Fla. woman arrested on felony charges for allowing 7yo to walk to park

At 7 I was riding my bike more then 1.5 miles from home. Never feared for my safety once.


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I laughed at the police officer saying how unsafe the area is and that it's full of pedophiles. If that's the case then the problem may not be with a women letting her child play as much as it is laws/judicial system not keeping criminals off the streets. I do understand there's not much the officer can do after arresting someone.

My daughter is 7 and there is no way I'd let her do that. They are too vulnerable at that age regardless of cell phones and a statistically safer world. If lightning were to strike and somebody snatched her up and harmed her after I allowed her to go unprotected/supervised I would not be able to live with myself.

Not a wise parenting decision if you ask me and what was she doing that was more important than going to the park with her 7 year old but that's just my opinion and it sounds like her arrest was based on the officers opinion as there is no law there on what age they can play unattened.

I'll say this for the kid when he was confronted by strangers who started asking him questions he got scared and ran away to the place he was supposed to be going. But the other side of that is if he's so prepared to be unsupervised and he has a cell phone why didn't he call his mother and inform her about the strangers approaching him?

 

I was out and about when I was young. We weren't more of a naive society, we've just become a scared, panicked, media driven, Internet parenting judging people.

 

When I was seven, I too was riding around on my bike, but I did have my older brother with me. My town is one of the quietest little areas. Neighbors looking out for everyone. Go down the road and it's like "Hiiii Mr. Wilson!" However, if I were to live in the city here, I'd never let my child venture to the street. I think it's too hard trying to see if she had the right or not without knowing exactly what the town is like that she lives in. But to be a felony, that's a little much.

 

That's why kids only get snatched from neighborhoods like yours, where it's safe for them to play outside alone, or walk to a park a half mile away alone.

Maybe Mama was overprotective. Maybe I'm overprotective. But you'll never see me on TV begging some unknown creep to give back my child.

 

That's fine.

I just choose to not be a helicopter parent. For one it really hurts their development, and two, I just choose not to live in constant fear.

 

Seems to me that officer should have done his job to "Protect and serve" by patroling the park area that is so full of pedophiles, in turn keeping all the children there safe.

BTW that was in no way a shot at LEO's in general, just a jab at the particulars in this case.

 

I rode all over our small town when I was young, but I don't think I was doing that at age 7. My daughter is 6 and I'm probably over protective of her. I wouldn't let her leave the house alone at 7.

 

Dumb.

 

I just looked at the crime statistics of Port St Lucie. They are 1/3rd as compared to all of Florida and nearly half of the national average.

If kids in that area cannot walk a half mile to a county park without having their parents arrested, then what the heck? Unless the officer was completely green and or a supervisor demanded an arrest, the most that should have been done was to get cps involved to offer child rearing advice and to educate the parent on the potential dangers that lurk in ref to child molesters.

That all being said, there is usually more to a police arrest than is first reported. Sometimes several factors that go into arrest are not reported because newspapers and the media are biased these days and do a horrible job of reporting the truth.

 

This is crazy that we don't let our children be kids anymore. They should be able to go to the park, ride there bike and run through the woods like we did growing up. I still remember doing all of those things when I was younger, are they going to remember what their score was on an x box game? I am NOT sorry if this offends anyone...if the kids cant go to the park because of pedophiles then we need to eliminate them!

 

So you figure there was more that led to the arrest than simply the child walking alone? House a disaster, mother a disaster, etc.... I actually would hope that is the case.

 

Such a BS statement at least in regards to kids...

 

All U.S. homicides: Down 40% 1992 -2005.
Juvenile homicide: Down 36% 1993 – 2005 (kids under age 14)
Juvenile homicide: Down 60% 1993 – 2005 (age 14 – 17)
Forcible rape: Down 28% 1992 – 2006
Sex Abuse Substantiations of Children, 1990 – 2005: Down 51%
Physical Abuse Substantiations of Children, 1990 – 2005: Down 46%
Juvenile Sex victimization trends, 1993 – 2003: Down 79%

Of all children under age 5 murdered from 1976-2005 –
31% were killed by fathers
29% were killed by mothers
23% were killed by male acquaintances
7% were killed by other relatives
3% were killed by strangers

 

Safer it is.

 

How bout sexual predators on the internet...that ones gone up since 1976. No?

 

Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is already made up, LOL.

 

I grew up in Green Bay and during summers I would wake up and eat breakfast than go outside and ride my bike all over with my friends all day long. We would go to different parks, different pools, packer practices, all over. I had to be home for lunch and dinner. This was in 90's. If I had kids I probably wouldn't let them do that these days though.

 

I just don't get it.

You have no problem with what you did as a youth, even though crime was much more prevalent and you did not have access to a cell phone.

Yet you would not let your children explore on their own in a safer time and they have access to a cell phone.

I just find this type of thinking to be crazy

This is truly an example of perception is greater than reality.

 

I remember growing up on the farm in the 60's at the age of 5 you worked in the fields and could only come into the house for dinner and bed time...beatings were out back . Please tell me how tuff life was in the 80/90s for kids