Berwick, PA — A Pennsylvania father found himself under arrest after his five-year-old son — not understanding it was a Saturday — walked to school by himself.
Forty-three-year-old Jeffrey Wagner now faces a child endangerment charge for his son’s nearly two-mile walk to school amid freezing temperatures on a weekend morning, a local CBS News affiliate reports.
Wagner awoke to his son, Mitchell, insisting it was time for him to go to school, but the father explained there wasn’t school on Saturday and told him to go back to bed — then fell asleep, himself.
After Wagner dozed off — thinking the point had been made — the 5-year-old proceeded to dress himself and bundle up to walk to the bus stop. When the bus didn’t arrive, the diligent child decided to walk the two miles to get to class.
A concerned motorist spotted the boy and called police, who then picked him up — and subsequently arrested his father.
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According to CBS, Wagner waived a preliminary hearing and will now face the charge of child endangerment in county court — all because he slept in on a Saturday morning and Mitchell took it upon himself to walk to school
This Nanny State pursuit of parents guilty only of potential crimes disguised as illegalities marks a vast departure from daily life mere decades ago. As Lenore Skenazy snarkily notes in a blog post for Reason, it’s now as if “any child who ventures outside is immediately in such grave danger, no parent should ever allow it, even if they’re asleep.”
Just years ago, an itinerant child would have been picked up by the same police officer and delivered home with a stern ‘talking-to’ about the dangers of venturing out without a parent — and Wagner might have received a sharp rebuke — but nothing more.
Increasingly, however, that isn’t the case — and parents are finding that just getting their kids to school can be a complex ordeal mired in wholly unnecessary law and unjust punishments.
In Jasper, Tennessee, The Free Thought Project reported about a mother, who — fed up with her children’s repeated tardiness causing them to miss the bus — led her to teach what should have been a valuable and pertinent lesson, but ended in a stunning confrontation with the police state.
In March, Lisa Marie Palmer told her two children she’d had enough of last-minute car rides to school after they missed the bus, again — and they would have to walk the long three miles.
Palmer, concerned for their safety, did not just send the kids on their way — she drove in front of them — proceeding forward until they caught up, in increments.
But Marion County Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Ladd spotted the children following the car and stopped to investigate.
Palmer explained the punishment to the deputy — which should have been sufficient for him to either go about other duties, or observe to ensure the children made it safely to school.
However, instead of acknowledging the creative and non-violent means the mother had employed to teach the importance of timeliness, Ladd astonishingly charged Palmer with child neglect — asserting in his report of the incident,
“Temperatures were cold, and traffic was beginning to become heavy with citizens heading to work … Mrs. Palmer was in no position to reach her children safely in the event of an emergency.”
Lisa and her husband Douglas even face the possibility of losing custody of their own children thanks to the obscene overreach of the Nanny State.
In Magnolia, Texas, a wholly different issue exists with transporting kids to school — parents there have been cited and threatened with charges or arrest, simply for dropping their children off on school grounds.
At Bear Branch elementary, principal Holly Ray insists parents either wait in the long car line to drop children off, or have them take the bus — otherwise, she says, they’re guilty of trespassing.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/dad-arrested-son-walked-school/#PXQJvZ0VzlFsguk6.99
Yeah welcome to fucking merika.
This is downright insane. The things my parents did when we were growing up in the 50’s and 60’s would probably merit execution or life in prison in today’s nonsensical world.
Hell, the stuff I did to my kids in the 90’s and 00’s would merit prison w/ these nincompoops in charge.
Somehow most normal people manage their lives and any incidental encounters with police officers without any drama whatsoever. I never put any stock in these kinds of articles. There is always more to the story
Nothing but that CBS report with very little information other than covering that the incident took place and a hearing is scheduled.
Not much to draw any solid conclusions from.
I doubt there will be any follow up reporting, but if there is it won’t be noticed outside of the local area so we won’t hear about it unless something of major significance comes out of it.
On my first day of kindergarten I was 4 yo and my older brother, who was 6, walked me to school. My parents NEVER walked or drove me to school. Ever.
Rainman……
Do not have children. They simply will belong to the state.
Your comment triggered a memory. Where is pirate jo?
Hello Comrade. Welcome to the United Soviet States of Amerika.
/sarcasm off
Who the hell was the brain dead “concerned motorist”? Oh my god! A child walking alone!!! I’d better call the police!!!!
That description should be changed from “concerned motorist” to “fascist snitch”. What a fucking asshole. He or, more likely, she deserves to have the full force of the authoritarian state brought down on her in all the myriad ways it is possible these days. Oh, you want more Big Brother, do you lady? Well you’re gonna get it, good and hard.
The motorist did the correct thing,the kid should not have been out by himself.
However,the writer was correct in saying that in past years the cop would simply have taken him home.It was the cop who overreacted.
You know, every neighborhood has one (or more) of these busybodies. Nothing apparently of any value to do all day but observe and create drama for everyone else that actually has a life. Mix one of these “concerned” busybodies, with policing for profit, and add in a touch of SJW cop and you have these type of incidents. In the old days, cops that did this type of thing would be in the captains office justifying why they are wasting time on this nonsense and not fighting actual crime, not to mention the laughing and sneering of their fellow cops. Now, it is expected and in fact encouraged, as any ticket issued usually incurs some type of court costs, sir charges etc. More cash flow for the “heroes”. Just remember this when the usual suspects put up some bond proposal in your town about needing money to hire more “heroes”. If the crime problem and staffing were such an issue, how is it that cops have time to deal with this nonsense, and sit for hours on the side of the road with a radar gun? Apparently, there is either too many cops, or not enough crime, either way, no more money for more heroes.
How many times have I called the cops when I saw a kid walking alone….. NEVER.
I was 9 the first time my parents allowed me to walk a couple of miles to the store. All this concern seems to imply that we’ve got a lot more people looking to do harm to children, than in the past. Why don’t we try to address that instead of confining children inside.
Stupid people elect idiots to pass ridiculous laws and then these idiots apppoint narsacistic bullies to train hired baboons to do their bidding by crimanilizing enough normal behavior so average people are committing several felonies per day and of course the fines penalties and confiscation of private property to justify more tax hikes to pay a bloted budget to protect us from many things that are really none of the states business but our citizens have become a mass of rude individuals including law enforcement and of course in the above mentioned cases there is a judge some where sucking one thumb while twittling the other up his ass and switching back and forth rather than a JUDGE that knows silly shit when he hears it and tossing it out and forcing the police department to apologize and compensate the families for their costs defending themselves from a state full of shit for brains !
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/a-great-story-from-when-america-was-still-the-land-of-opportunity-20636
IF this man is cleared of criminal charges by a jury (and he SHOULD be), can he sue to learn the name of his accuser? Whatever happened to the right to face your accuser in court?
No, the accuser would be the cop, not the concerned citizen who reported the issue. The caller merely reported something of interest.