Treffley Coyne decided to drive to Wal-Mart in the Chicago suburb of Crestwood so her three children and a young friend could donate the coins they'd collected at her husband's office to the Salvation Army.
Even as she buckled 2-year-old Phoebe into the car, the girl was asleep. When Coyne arrived at the store, she found a spot to park in a loading zone, right behind someone tying a Christmas tree onto a car.
"It's sleeting out, it's not pleasant, I don't want to disturb her, wake her up," Coyne said this week. "It was safer to leave her in the safety and warmth of an alarmed car than take her."
So Coyne switched on the emergency flashers, locked the car, activated the alarm and walked the other children to the bell ringer.
She snapped a few pictures of the girls donating money and headed back to the car. But a community service officer blocked her way.
Minutes later, she was under arrest -- the focus of both a police investigation and a probe by the state's child welfare agency.
She was on a tirade, she was yelling at me," Coyne said. The officer, Coyne said, didn't want to hear about how close Coyne was, how she never set foot inside the store and was just there to let the kids donate money, or how she could always see her car.
Coyne telephoned her husband, Tim Janecyk, who advised her not to say anything else to police until he arrived. So Coyne declined to talk further, refusing even to tell police her child's name.
When Janecyk pulled up, his wife already was handcuffed, sitting in a patrol car.
....
The 36-year-old suburban mother is preparing to go on trial Thursday on misdemeanor charges of child endangerment and obstructing a peace officer. If convicted, she could be sentenced to a year in jail and fined $2,500, even though child welfare workers found no credible evidence of abuse or neglect.
Source: Fox News (link here)
This is the most ridiculous thing I've read, I would and still will do the exact same thing as that mom. It is not child endagerment when you are in site of your child and car.
I know, anyone can publish anything these days, but shouldn't it be "a few yards" and not "a few years"?
I mean it's in the freaking subtitle. get someone to proofread. or put in more effort.
dang.
She was paying such close attention to the car with her child in it that she didn't notice the officer inspecting it?
I strongly suspect that the child was left in the car because it was more convenient, not because it was "safer."
If the environment is such that you can't (or don't want to) take care of your herd of offspring in it, then don't take them into it.
You might want to investigate a technique we call "capitalization" before picking nits, Trotz.
Tak, you're one of those people who always defends the Man, aren't you? Lick that spittle somewhere else, boy.
Very nice.