11-Year-Old Boy Played in His Yard. CPS Took Him, Felony Charge for Parents

Hate the neighbors for not letting them inside, out of the rain.

The people who called the cops should learn to mind their own damn business

I mean really, who does that?

What absolute horse shit. At 11 that kid was more than capable of watching himself in his own yard for 90 minutes. And if the nosy neighbor was so concerned why didn't they offer to let the boy come play in their yard where they could supervise until the parents came home and they voiced their concerns?

if you have a little bit creativity, u can hide a key everywhere.
No need for such money wasting things like rock shaped key hides.

How does a kid not have a key to get into the house?

ITS A KID! Even i, grown man, forget or lose sometimes some things! do we really need to talk about?

The question is not how a kid can have no key.
The question is: Where the fuck did we go if people call the police because the neighbourkid plays 90 minutes basketball in the yard. WHY SHOULD ANYONE CALL THE POLICE??

GO and waste you money for stone shaped shit, and hide your kids in the basement.

You cannot leave under 12 year old alone for long. It's the law.

There must get bad blood between the neighbors, bc growing up if that happened to me a neighbor wled hv been called by my parents to help.

There are always more sides to the story. Could have been a habitual thing.

GOOD! I have young girls, and they are never out of me or my wife's eyesight. There are just too many kids being grabbed by child predators.

I know when I was a kid (in the 1980s) hundreds of thousands of kids were abducted each and every year in the USA.

It may not be as bad now, but it's still very bad. Keep your kid's within arms' reach folks ...

100s of thousands go missing every year.most are runaways or taken by a non custodial relative.less than 200 are abducted by strangers, statistically your child is way safer with a stranger than family or friends

One afternoon this past April, a Florida mom and dad I'll call Cindy and Fred could not get home in time to let their 11-year-old son into the house. The boy didn't have a key, so he played basketball in the yard. He was alone for 90 minutes. A neighbor called the cops, and when the parents arrived—having been delayed by traffic and rain—they were arrested for negligence.

They were put in handcuffs, strip searched, fingerprinted, and held overnight in jail.

It would be a month before their sons—the 11-year-old and his 4-year-old brother—were allowed home again. Only after the eldest spoke up and begged a judge to give him back to his parents did the situation improve.

I spoke with Cindy about her family’s horrible ordeal.

"My older one was the so-called 'victim,'" she said during a phone interview. But since she and her husband were charged with felony neglect, the younger boy had to be removed from the home, too.

Here is the law: "A person who willfully or by culpable negligence neglects a child without causing great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement to the child commits a felony of the third degree."

I first heard of Cindy's case last week when she wrote to me at Free-Range Kids. Her email explained:

The authorities claim he had no access to water or shelter. We have an open shed in the back yard and 2 working sinks and 2 hoses. They said he had no food. He ate his snacks already. He had no bathroom, but the responding officer found our yard good enough to relieve himself in while our son sat in a police car alone. In his own yard, in a state, Florida, that has no minimum age for children to be alone.

The children were placed in foster care for two days while the state ran a background check on a relative who was willing to take them in. "Our first choice was my mother," said Cindy. "But she lives in another state and so the kids would have been in foster care even longer until they cleared her." The parents decided to have them placed with a slightly problematic in-state relative instead.

On the day they all appeared in children's court to move the kids from foster care into the relative's custody, Cindy thought her older son smelled a little strange.

"What have you been eating?" she asked.



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The person who lived next door, I hate to use the word neighbor, because I like to think of neighbors as extensions to my community, and I like to view them in a positive light. It is not always easy.

The people that placed that call did not do so for the benefit of the child. They used the child as a pawn in a vicious, vindictive act, to get back at the parents or the children.

Twice in the last two years, I had to take on the financial responsibility for the repair of vandalism done to my home. Destruction done by a group of young boys ages six to nine. Partly done out of curiosity and partly done an a dare. When I found which children were involved, I felt worse for what the children had to endure from their rude, ignorant, classless parents, and even worse when talking with the police. The children were lost in a cesspool of a system that saw them as worthless with no hope, and left with little chance of a productive future, under the care of people that did not want the responsibility and lacked the commitment to be parents.

It was easier for me to work overtime to pay off the $35,000.00 loan for the repairs, than to allow those children to suffer the consequences, if I had proceeded with legal action.

It was, and still is not, an easy choice. I still become angry when I think about the unfairness of the whole situation. I sometimes feel like I should have made the parents pay, but I keep reminding myself that even if I had proceeded with the law suit, I would never have received a dime, and the children would have been the ones that would have suffered the most.

The lessons they would have learned at age six to nine, were not the lessons that would have made them better men, and I did not want to live with the knowledge that by opening that box, it would only end with a closed lid and a missing key.

I am sure there is a lot that is not being told in this story, and I am sure that there are no truly innocent parties involved, and in the end the only ones that truly suffer are the children.

Neighbor needs his ass kicked.

CPS is not a place for children, it should always be considered a last resort.

What the hell is wrong with people?!
If the neighbors were so concerned, why didn't they offer to let him enter their home to wait, and call the parents to get an ETA?
People are seriously retarded.

i had working parents. when i was 11, after school i babysat my 3 younger sisters and it was our job to have the house cleaned when the parents got home.
the good old days.

The person who lived next door, I hate to use the word neighbor, because I like to think of neighbors as extensions to my community, and I like to view them in a positive light. It is not always easy.

The people that placed that call did not do so for the benefit of the child. They used the child as a pawn in a vicious, vindictive act, to get back at the parents or the children.

Twice in the last two years, I had to take on the financial responsibility for the repair of vandalism done to my home. Destruction done by a group of young boys ages six to nine. Partly done out of curiosity and partly done an a dare. When I found which children were involved, I felt worse for what the children had to endure from their rude, ignorant, classless parents, and even worse when talking with the police. The children were lost in a cesspool of a system that saw them as worthless with no hope, and left with little chance of a productive future, under the care of people that did not want the responsibility and lacked the commitment to be parents.

It was easier for me to work overtime to pay off the $35,000.00 loan for the repairs, than to allow those children to suffer the consequences, if I had proceeded with legal action.

It was, and still is not, an easy choice. I still become angry when I think about the unfairness of the whole situation. I sometimes feel like I should have made the parents pay, but I keep reminding myself that even if I had proceeded with the law suit, I would never have received a dime, and the children would have been the ones that would have suffered the most.

The lessons they would have learned at age six to nine, were not the lessons that would have made them better men, and I did not want to live with the knowledge that by opening that box, it would only end with a closed lid and a missing key.

I am sure there is a lot that is not being told in this story, and I am sure that there are no truly innocent parties involved, and in the end the only ones that truly suffer are the children.

GOOD! I have young girls, and they are never out of me or my wife's eyesight. There are just too many kids being grabbed by child predators.

I know when I was a kid (in the 1980s) hundreds of thousands of kids were abducted each and every year in the USA.

It may not be as bad now, but it's still very bad. Keep your kid's within arms' reach folks ...

One afternoon this past April, a Florida mom and dad I'll call Cindy and Fred could not get home in time to let their 11-year-old son into the house. The boy didn't have a key, so he played basketball in the yard. He was alone for 90 minutes. A neighbor called the cops, and when the parents arrived—having been delayed by traffic and rain—they were arrested for negligence.

They were put in handcuffs, strip searched, fingerprinted, and held overnight in jail.

It would be a month before their sons—the 11-year-old and his 4-year-old brother—were allowed home again. Only after the eldest spoke up and begged a judge to give him back to his parents did the situation improve.

I spoke with Cindy about her family’s horrible ordeal.

"My older one was the so-called 'victim,'" she said during a phone interview. But since she and her husband were charged with felony neglect, the younger boy had to be removed from the home, too.

Here is the law: "A person who willfully or by culpable negligence neglects a child without causing great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement to the child commits a felony of the third degree."

I first heard of Cindy's case last week when she wrote to me at Free-Range Kids. Her email explained:

The authorities claim he had no access to water or shelter. We have an open shed in the back yard and 2 working sinks and 2 hoses. They said he had no food. He ate his snacks already. He had no bathroom, but the responding officer found our yard good enough to relieve himself in while our son sat in a police car alone. In his own yard, in a state, Florida, that has no minimum age for children to be alone.

The children were placed in foster care for two days while the state ran a background check on a relative who was willing to take them in. "Our first choice was my mother," said Cindy. "But she lives in another state and so the kids would have been in foster care even longer until they cleared her." The parents decided to have them placed with a slightly problematic in-state relative instead.

On the day they all appeared in children's court to move the kids from foster care into the relative's custody, Cindy thought her older son smelled a little strange.

"What have you been eating?" she asked.



MORE....
[link to reason.com (secure)]

what next? parents will be arrested for not keeping their 17 and a half yr old on a child leash?

Are you out of your fucking mind?

GOOD! I have young girls, and they are never out of me or my wife's eyesight. There are just too many kids being grabbed by child predators.

I know when I was a kid (in the 1980s) hundreds of thousands of kids were abducted each and every year in the USA.

It may not be as bad now, but it's still very bad. Keep your kid's within arms' reach folks ...

Some kids need to be on a leash, but if the kid didn't do anything wrong I don't see how the fucking state can get involved. When I was 12 I was going to other COUNTRIES unattended by an adult. At 4 I was roaming the neighborhood, and at 10 I hunted. It's sad what has happened, the real threat to the kids isn't people out in the neighborhood, it's the fucking government.

The Neighbor that called should be flogged in public. We've officially jumped the fuckin' shark in this country...

Hundreds of thousands? You made that shit up.