Mom sues police and neighbor after she is arrested for letting her kids play outside

rockin'robin

rockin'robin

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Allowing your kids to play on scooters outside the house on a quiet street seems innocent--and common--enough. But a Texas mom was arrested and spent the night in jail after a neighbor complained that the children were unsupervised.

The parent, Tammy Cooper, disputes the "humiliating" charge, saying she was watching the kids, ages 6 and 9, the whole time from a lawn chair.

But police took the neighbor at her word, and a few hours after the call, arrested Cooper for child endangerment. Cooper told KPRC that the arresting officer told her, "We're here for you."

The accused parent spent the night behind bars. "Orange jump suit, in a cell, slammed the door, for 18 hours," she said.

Cooper is suing the La Porte Police Department, the officer, and the neighbor who made the call. In a statement, the police department said it was "confident of the known actions of the officers on the scene that evening." The neighbor had no comment.

Mom sues police and neighbor after she is arrested for letting her kids play outside | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News
 
Wow. That's ridiculous!! And scary. And that is just one of the many reasons why I would never move to TX.
 
Sure is....wondering if the mother was "sleeping" in the lawn chair, getting a tan ??....If so, then yes indeed, she was not watching her kids....
 
CSign said:
Wow. That's ridiculous!! And scary. And that is just one of the many reasons why I would never move to TX.
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but every state has a child endangerment criminal statute. the only ridiculous thing is cop's decision to arrest her, regardless of state.
 
Jiro said:
but every state has a child endangerment criminal statute. the only ridiculous thing is cop's decision to arrest her, regardless of state.
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I do agree...a quiet neighborhood, not much traffic and if the kids were on the sidewalk in front of the house, that seems OK....ages 6 and 9 are a good age to have some independence outside.....they are not toddlers....If the mother was sleeping and the kids got hurt, then that's a different story, as we parents have to keep an eye on our kids...perhaps it was just a vindicative neighbor?....
 
overreaction

when I was kid we used to go to the old railroad tracks to play or to the school on a Saturday. What's next? Arresting parents for letting their kids walk to school? The real problem is the hit and miss application of the laws. The officer took the word of one neighbor and felt like making an arrest that day.
 
My deaf co-worker's ex-wife was arrested for the same reason (child neglect). The two kids were about 4 yrs old and 6 yrs old playing on the street while the mom was inside the house so the neighbors called the cops. Since she was an unfit mother by court order in Calif, the kids' father took custody of them for two years or so until his ex-wife moved to another state and won the full custody. Now he has to pay about $1,400 per month for child support. Unbelievable! He was supposed to retire by now (he's around 60) but because of child support, he has to postpone his retirement until his kids become 18.
 
I was pretty allow to play outside with siblings, both of us are less 10 years old. Only at the lawn, we were pretty aware of not cross out of house zone.
 
Many variables.....

Was this a dead end street?

Did one end of street lead to a busy street?

Was this a big street?

See, if parents was at their house and the kids were on playing on scooters 10 house away, then I would see where neighbor would complain. If I had kids playing, I'll make sure they're not 10 houses away. Maybe in front of house or 2 houses away?

Also, was Mom on dead end and kids were scootering towards busy street?
 
There has to be more to the story. A neighbor just dont call on whim if they think if kids are not being watched. Were they loud? close calls with traffic? I can go on and on with this. Either you have you are lazy or have neighbor with a vengence or its been a ongoing problem and neighbor gets fed up, so they call. You cant protect yourself from kids getting hurt until you get it documented by calling police.
 
Tammy Cooper, Texas Mom, Arrested For Letting Kids Play Outside Unsupervised (VIDEO)
Tammy Cooper, a stay-at-home mom who lives in La Porte, Texas, was arrested earlier this month after a neighbor reported her for allegedly letting her kids play outside on their motorized scooters unsupervised.

Cooper, who spent 18 hours in jail overnight, says she was watching her children, ages 6 and 9, from a lawn chair during the time of the incident. The family lives in a cul-de-sac, and Cooper told KPRC that the safe location was one of the reasons she had chosen to reside there.

When police showed up at Cooper's home to arrest the mother for child endangerment, her kids protested.

“My daughter had him [the police officer] around the leg saying, “Please, please don’t take my mom to jail. Please, she didn’t do anything wrong,’” Cooper told the station.

The charges against Cooper were dropped, but she is now suing the City of La Porte Police Department, the arresting officer and her neighbor for damages.

Cooper's arrest caused a bit of outrage, even making the news in Australia. On the Internet, some moms rallied to Cooper's defense, saying that she didn't deserve to be arrested for child endangerment.

"All children may not be old enough to handle such a situation, but some definitely are, and it should be a parent's right to decide if they are," Julie Ryan Evans wrote on CafeMom.

It is worth noting that some parents are proponents of a hands-off playtime.

HuffPost blogger Lenore Skenazy, who holds a class called "I Won't Supervise Your Kids," notes that it's good for children to figure out how to play on their own.

"For the last few decades, child development experts have been telling us that the crucial thing missing from kids' lives is exactly what used to fill them: Time with friends of different ages, playing outside, on their own," Skenazy wrote.
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Courthouse News Service
HOUSTON (CN) - Police falsely arrested a mother for "child endangerment" after a neighbor reported that she had abandoned her children by letting them ride scooters in the street, the mom claims in court.

Tammy Cooper sued her neighbor Shelley Fuller, the city of La Porte Police Department and one unidentified officer, in Federal Court.

La Porte is a city of 33,000 near the Houston Ship Channel in Harris County.

In her complaint, Cooper says she lives on a "quiet, suburban cul de sac" and "often allows her 6- and 9-year-old children to ride their scooters on the street while she watches from a chair in the driveway or through the large windows on the front of her house."

"On the day of her arrest, Cooper's children were playing on their scooters in the cul de sac when her neighbor, defendant Shelley Fuller, called the City of La Porte Police Department to report that Cooper had 'abandoned' her children," the complaint states.

Cooper says she told the responding La Porte policeman that she had been home the whole time.

"Unknown Officer went across the street to talk with defendant Fuller. It was at this point that Fuller reported, for the first time, that she had struck one of Cooper's children with her vehicle as they played in the street," the complaint states. "Unknown Officer returned to Cooper's home, and after another conversation with Unknown Officer, Cooper was placed under arrest for the felony offenses of child endangerment and child abandonment.

"Never at any point were any of Cooper's children hit by a car as they played in the street. Moreover, Cooper was observing her children the entire time they were outside on the date of her arrest and thus could not plausibly have abandoned them. Despite the fact that Fuller alleged she had hit one of the children with her vehicle, no medical response was called for or needed as it was obvious that neither child had been hit by a car or was hurt in any way. Interestingly, Fuller was never confronted about her lie regarding striking the child with the car. Instead, Cooper, the victim of an angry neighbor, was arrested and charged with a crime in a public and embarrassing manner."

Cooper says her children witnessed her arrest and pleaded with the officer not to take her to jail, an experience made worse by the fact that their father was away in Austin on military duty.

"Cooper agreed to cooperate with Unknown Officer and asked Unknown Officer if he could cuff her hands in the front, as she has a history of neck, back, and shoulder problems and her arms cannot be place behind her back without extreme pain," Cooper says in the complaint. "Unknown Officer ignored her request, and handcuffed her hands incredibly tightly behind her back, so tight in fact that the handcuffs cut into the skin on her wrists."

Cooper says the arrest re-aggravated her health problems, and she might need back surgery.

"Cooper spent 18 hours in custody. Cooper spent over $7,000 in court and legal fees before the unsubstantiated felony charges against her were dismissed," the complaint states. "The incident also led to an investigation by Child Protective Services, requiring Cooper to take her children to the CPS office in Houston.

"Her children were separated from her and interrogated by child abuse investigators. CPS found no cause for concern regarding the well being of Cooper's children and dropped the investigation."

Cooper seeks damages from La Porte Police Department and its officer for false arrest, and from Fuller for defamation.

She reserves the right to seek punitive damages from Fuller and the policeman.

She is represented by Ryan Gertz, with Gertz Adair, of Beaumont, Texas.
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I hope she wins the lawsuit.
 
rockin'robin said:
Allowing your kids to play on scooters outside the house on a quiet street seems innocent--and common--enough. But a Texas mom was arrested and spent the night in jail after a neighbor complained that the children were unsupervised.

The parent, Tammy Cooper, disputes the "humiliating" charge, saying she was watching the kids, ages 6 and 9, the whole time from a lawn chair.

But police took the neighbor at her word, and a few hours after the call, arrested Cooper for child endangerment. Cooper told KPRC that the arresting officer told her, "We're here for you."

The accused parent spent the night behind bars. "Orange jump suit, in a cell, slammed the door, for 18 hours," she said.

Cooper is suing the La Porte Police Department, the officer, and the neighbor who made the call. In a statement, the police department said it was "confident of the known actions of the officers on the scene that evening." The neighbor had no comment.

Mom sues police and neighbor after she is arrested for letting her kids play outside | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News
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I suspect there's more to the story than the paper's reporting.

Laura
 
caz12 said:
got to be more to this.
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Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing.

I've gone out on my own when I was 8 years old. I would go miles and miles away. There was even a time when I was 12 and took my 8 year old brother several miles away to a 7-Eleven to play Golden Axe arcade for a couple hours. I would even go to Blockbuster Video several blocks away to rent movies alone.

This story makes me wonder if there was really more to the story because sometimes, they leave things out.
 
I hope she wins. I really, really do. People are getting out of hand. You can get a parent in trouble for anything and everything anymore.
 
I have seen many children play unsupervised without have their parents arrest. This article captured my attention. There are must be more story than that because otherwise there would be many thousands arrests everywhere for just not watch the children near their home.
 
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