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> A young child walking alone may seem a cause for concern, and, perhaps all the neighbor wanted was to make sure the child was safe. They verified where the c

> A young child walking alone may seem a cause for concern, and, perhaps all the neighbor wanted was to make sure the child was safe. They verified where the child lived, which was just down the block, and still proceeded to call the police instead of... escorting the kid home? > A woman one block away had called the cops to report a boy walking outside alone. That lady had actually asked Aiden where he lived, verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless. The cops picked up Aiden on his own block.

rrauenza 4y ago
I thought the same.. but who knows, in all serious, maybe the woman feared someone would accuse her of attempted kidnapping.
- martyvis 4y ago
  And that is the another "modern" problem. I live in a semi-rural village, with 5km to the nearest town. If a teenage child was walking in between them (say they're bike was broken down) and I drive past: 1. I'd think if I stop and offer to pick them up, they might think I'm a potential pedophile/kidnapper. So I'm reticent. 2. They would think, as they likely have been trained, if they put out a hand and ask for a lift it might be be a kidnapper. Somehow we have conditioned ourselves and our children in the space of maybe 40 years to think the absolute worst is likely when the reality it is actually quite rare. (I'm in Australia)
  - tsuujin 4y ago
    I loathe and despise how accurate this is. I’ve been preaching for years that “stranger danger” has done massive harm to society, far far more harm than the bad actors they’re trying to save us from would have done. Teaching children that all people are inherently bad and you should be afraid of anyone you don’t know sets the tone for how they are going to relate to other people for the rest of their lives. In my experience most people are good and helpful, I’ve had far far more people be kind to me than harmful or malicious. Mr. Rogers taught me to “look for the helpers” and that also told me that there are always good people out there who are trustworthy. We need to go back to that.
    - PebblesRox 4y ago
      This is where I really appreciate how Kidpower teaches kids about safety with strangers. They focus on the positive while making sure kids are equipped to make wise decisions when a person or situation is not safe: - a stranger is someone you don’t know - most strangers are good - the safety rules for strangers are to check first with your grown-ups before talking to, going with, or getting something from a stranger - for kids who are old enough to be out and about on their own, checking first changes to thinking first, i.e. evaluating the situation - if you are having an emergency where you can’t check first, you can get help from a stranger without needing to check first https://www.kidpower.org/library/article/safety-on-the-way-to-school-guidelines/ https://www.kidpower.org/library/article/safety-on-the-way-t...
ALittleLight 4y ago
There could be any reason for that. The neighbor might be naive and unfamiliar with children and think it is a big deal, the neighbor might have misunderstood what the child said, or the neighbor might just be unusually fearful. The point is - if the police functioned reasonably then it wouldn't be a big deal to call them and report a walking child - not necessary, but no real harm. I see no evidence the neighbor was trying to be harmful, the neighbor just made a bad decision but could not have reasonably predicted the consequences of that decision. Maybe another way to put it is that the neighbor did a slightly bad thing, unnecessary police call, call it 0.01 Bad. The police did a terrible thing, 100 Bad. Judges and prosecutors even worse because they failed at their explicit task - making reasoned judgments about what is right and wrong - 1,000 Bad. CPS also had a complete failure of their explicit task, but maybe it is a little more excusable because hopefully most people who reach this point in the process actually do require some intervention, call it 980 Bad. When you say that the neighbor is also to blame, it's kind of true in some meaningless technical sense. The neighbor did something slightly bad, but it is so slightly bad as to be totally inconsequential in the broader sense. If you were to try and minimize the badness here you should focus on the justice system, CPS, and the police - and you would basically never get to the neighbor because you could never optimize those other systems enough for the neighbors small fault to be consequential. The failures here are all of the form "You incorrectly invoked system X. That was a mistake because X is totally broken!" The neighbor incorrectly called the police. The police incorrectly arrested the mother invoking the courts, the courts incorrectly penalized the mother and invoked CPS. All of those systems are completely broken and the solution is not to minimize calls to them, but to fix the systems.
pasttense01 4y ago
>They verified where the child lived, which was just down the block, and still proceeded to call the police instead of... escorting the kid home? That would probably not be a safe thing for the neighbor to do in a place like Waco--he/she could be arrested as a pedophile. But the whole thing sounds totally crazy to me. I walked a half mile to and from school alone from first grade to high school almost every day.

rrauenza 4y ago

I thought the same.. but who knows, in all serious, maybe the woman feared someone would accuse her of attempted kidnapping.

martyvis 4y ago
And that is the another "modern" problem. I live in a semi-rural village, with 5km to the nearest town. If a teenage child was walking in between them (say they're bike was broken down) and I drive past: 1. I'd think if I stop and offer to pick them up, they might think I'm a potential pedophile/kidnapper. So I'm reticent. 2. They would think, as they likely have been trained, if they put out a hand and ask for a lift it might be be a kidnapper. Somehow we have conditioned ourselves and our children in the space of maybe 40 years to think the absolute worst is likely when the reality it is actually quite rare. (I'm in Australia)
- tsuujin 4y ago
  I loathe and despise how accurate this is. I’ve been preaching for years that “stranger danger” has done massive harm to society, far far more harm than the bad actors they’re trying to save us from would have done. Teaching children that all people are inherently bad and you should be afraid of anyone you don’t know sets the tone for how they are going to relate to other people for the rest of their lives. In my experience most people are good and helpful, I’ve had far far more people be kind to me than harmful or malicious. Mr. Rogers taught me to “look for the helpers” and that also told me that there are always good people out there who are trustworthy. We need to go back to that.
  - PebblesRox 4y ago
    This is where I really appreciate how Kidpower teaches kids about safety with strangers. They focus on the positive while making sure kids are equipped to make wise decisions when a person or situation is not safe: - a stranger is someone you don’t know - most strangers are good - the safety rules for strangers are to check first with your grown-ups before talking to, going with, or getting something from a stranger - for kids who are old enough to be out and about on their own, checking first changes to thinking first, i.e. evaluating the situation - if you are having an emergency where you can’t check first, you can get help from a stranger without needing to check first https://www.kidpower.org/library/article/safety-on-the-way-to-school-guidelines/ https://www.kidpower.org/library/article/safety-on-the-way-t...

ALittleLight 4y ago

There could be any reason for that. The neighbor might be naive and unfamiliar with children and think it is a big deal, the neighbor might have misunderstood what the child said, or the neighbor might just be unusually fearful. The point is - if the police functioned reasonably then it wouldn't be a big deal to call them and report a walking child - not necessary, but no real harm. I see no evidence the neighbor was trying to be harmful, the neighbor just made a bad decision but could not have reasonably predicted the consequences of that decision. Maybe another way to put it is that the neighbor did a slightly bad thing, unnecessary police call, call it 0.01 Bad. The police did a terrible thing, 100 Bad. Judges and prosecutors even worse because they failed at their explicit task - making reasoned judgments about what is right and wrong - 1,000 Bad. CPS also had a complete failure of their explicit task, but maybe it is a little more excusable because hopefully most people who reach this point in the process actually do require some intervention, call it 980 Bad. When you say that the neighbor is also to blame, it's kind of true in some meaningless technical sense. The neighbor did something slightly bad, but it is so slightly bad as to be totally inconsequential in the broader sense. If you were to try and minimize the badness here you should focus on the justice system, CPS, and the police - and you would basically never get to the neighbor because you could never optimize those other systems enough for the neighbors small fault to be consequential. The failures here are all of the form "You incorrectly invoked system X. That was a mistake because X is totally broken!" The neighbor incorrectly called the police. The police incorrectly arrested the mother invoking the courts, the courts incorrectly penalized the mother and invoked CPS. All of those systems are completely broken and the solution is not to minimize calls to them, but to fix the systems.

pasttense01 4y ago

>They verified where the child lived, which was just down the block, and still proceeded to call the police instead of... escorting the kid home? That would probably not be a safe thing for the neighbor to do in a place like Waco--he/she could be arrested as a pedophile. But the whole thing sounds totally crazy to me. I walked a half mile to and from school alone from first grade to high school almost every day.