The people arguing with you are assuming that the police accurately reported the situation, so that CPS was told "this parent let their child walk half a mile u

The people arguing with you are assuming that the police accurately reported the situation, so that CPS was told "this parent let their child walk half a mile unattended". If that is the only complaint, there's clearly no need to investigate because there's nothing to investigate. Whereas if - as you seem to be assuming - CPS only heard "this parent commited neglect and possibly abuse of their child", investigation would indeed be needed to figure out they were being lied to. But other people are assuming CPS got accurate information in the first place. Edit: apparently dragonwriter already explained this (better) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33629395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33629395.