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Wife arrested for child abuse (1 Viewer)

Max Power

Footballguy
Please keep the schtick to a minimum for the moment.  My wife is going through a tough time.  She has always been a good mom and never been in trouble in her life.

She works from home most days and we have 3 kids on summer break.  7,8 and 11.  Last Thursday she was working from home and she was just put on a new account that requires a security clearance. Part of the process is to submit fingerprints for the criminal background investigation.  Her work asked her to come in and do that ASAP.  She has only been at that company for 9 months, so she is still under pressure to do what they say.

She set the alarm and told the kids to stay put. Unfortunately there was a power outage while she was out.  We arent sure if the power outage tripped the alarm or the kids did, but it went off. She got two calls from the security monitoring company that she did not answer (her fault) and it went to the local PD after that.  In her defense, we've only lived at this house for 2 weeks.  Its not a number she knows.

So the cops came and our oldest called mom.  She called me and let me know that the cops were at the house.  Long story short, in the state of North Carolina a child under the age of 8 is not allowed to left alone without supervision.  A case can be argued that the 11 year old is adequate, so we will get a lawyer for that.   Ultimately the police arrested my wife since she was the last to leave the house.  Her entire time with law enforcement was a bunch of "you're the nicest person we've ever dealt with and you don't belong here".  The arresting officer just did his job.

Legally its put in paper as Child Abuse and a crime against a minor.  We had a DCS agent show up tonight to do a walk through the house.  She was very nice and understanding.  My wife goes to court in October.  We're a good family and not the type of people the state should waste calories on. 

I'm mainly posting this as a FYI and to not let others fall into the same situation.  I promised the wife that I wouldnt talk to family about it.  Child abuse in writing doesn't fit the situation.  Shes a great mom and doesn't need that tag on her.

 
Ugh. I hope she doesn't lose her job over this.

What's the minimum age for a babysitter in your state? Can you say that the 11-year-old was babysitting?

 
Ugh. I hope she doesn't lose her job over this.

What's the minimum age for a babysitter in your state? Can you say that the 11-year-old was babysitting?
She was worried about this the day of.  Since she was at work when it all went down her supervisor said she'd speak in her behalf. Her work and security clearance should be ok.  

14 is the age of responsibility on the books for NC.  Per the school district, they can drop a kid off at 9 without a parent present.  Its what led to her decision to leave the kids for an hour.

 
And not to start anything but NC seems to need to get their act together law-wise.
So we asked the DCS lady about it.  How a kid can get off the bus and be ok, but if a cop comes to that house, its child abuse and she just looked at us.  There isn't an answer.  Its a money grab.  The wife should be good. 

 
That's just awful.  Good luck to all of you.  I bet your kids are totally confused right about now, and I don't blame them.

 
Wow - that's horrible - I honestly have no idea what the age is for Georgia.  Thankfully my oldest two are 16 and 14 so they can watch the 9 year old.  Good luck Max.

 
Unfortunately you're not the kind of family the law was written for but also unfortunately you're now caught up in.  Let the legal process play out and hopefully the state will drop the case (if they're even able to).  Good luck. 

 
Total horse feces. Arrested? How about we exercise some judgment and stop arresting people that smoke a joint or leave a kid home alone for a few minutes with an older kid. Christ, when I was 11, I would take care of my kid brothers for an entire night - they were 8 and 4 at the time.

 
Total horse feces. Arrested? How about we exercise some judgment and stop arresting people that smoke a joint or leave a kid home alone for a few minutes with an older kid. Christ, when I was 11, I would take care of my kid brothers for an entire night - they were 8 and 4 at the time.
Although I agree with you unfortunately that's the world we live in.  If you don't strictly adhere to the guidelines you can be fired, otherwise you are showing favoritism and privilege.

 
Bull####. Just stupid. The cops have their hands tied cause some law is on the books. 

Will this impact wife's security clearance?

 
Total horse feces. Arrested? How about we exercise some judgment and stop arresting people that smoke a joint or leave a kid home alone for a few minutes with an older kid. Christ, when I was 11, I would take care of my kid brothers for an entire night - they were 8 and 4 at the time.
Not to hijack but I had to laugh when I thought about a little EG babysitting:   Soft porn on old VHS tapes, playing poker with potato chips, doing shots of rootbeer, and an Oreo food eating challenge at the end of the night.

 
Such bs. If you have the resources it sounds like this would be an ideal case to fight the law to either get it changed or taken off the books. Maybe the ACLU would help with a landmark case?

There's so much wrong done here against her and you. It's similar to the Subway owners that lost business due to a false accusation by a cop that a worker spiked his drink or the Col. who was up for Brigadier General that got awarded $8M dollars from his accuser when he was falsely accused of rape while at West Point and lost his promotion, career and reputation. Like they say, people think you want your reputation back but it's really about an emphatic public denunciation and retraction of the false charges. 

A win also gives you the ammunition to remove it from public records including search engines like Google. 

 
My oldest daughter is almost 8 and I'd leave her alone with her 10 year old nephew.  Mostly because the nephew is uber responsible

 
There are no laws on the books in New Jersey as to what age a child can be left home alone, but Safe Kids Worldwide recommends that no child under the age of 12 be left home alone

finally a reason NJ doesn't suck 

 
get a lawyer to have this dismissed.  they arrested her for violating a fire code.  NC has no civil or criminal code for this, except on Ft Bragg in Fayettenam.

The 11 yr old was adequate supervision.  the code is to prevent fire dangers.

sounds fishy.....

 
There are no laws on the books in New Jersey as to what age a child can be left home alone, but Safe Kids Worldwide recommends that no child under the age of 12 be left home alone

finally a reason NJ doesn't suck 
True but there is probably some home alone tax because of this 

 
There are no laws on the books in New Jersey as to what age a child can be left home alone, but Safe Kids Worldwide recommends that no child under the age of 12 be left home alone

finally a reason NJ doesn't suck 
As long as the kid isn't trying to pump gas, he's okay.

 
max i am sorry to hear this i hope that it all gets wiped off the books and turns out ok take care of yourself and your wife and be well

 
Sorry this happened to you.  I wish the police would have exercised some judgment here, but perhaps there is some zero tolerance policy.  This should have been a warning.   I hope it turns out OK.  The situation stinks. 

 
Will this impact wife's security clearance?
Unfortunately it could unless you have a very understanding and good investigator. I'm not sure what level of clearance she's going for but character checks will matter, previous work history, and if she has to do the poly it will come up and she will have an opportunity to tell them exactly what happened.  In this case, if she tells them the truth and doesn't try to cover up anything she could be okay since there was clearly no criminal intent going on.  

Good look, Max

 
Definitely one of those situations were common sense NEEDS to prevail. Hope for you and your wife and family that it does, Max. GL GB. 

 
Talk to a good lawyer and see if anything lawerly stuff can be done to lessen this on her record.

Sorry to hear this. Good luck to your wife and family. 

 
Total horse feces. Arrested? How about we exercise some judgment and stop arresting people that smoke a joint or leave a kid home alone for a few minutes with an older kid. Christ, when I was 11, I would take care of my kid brothers for an entire night - they were 8 and 4 at the time.
Now we have some insight into the Ox and Yams.

I've got a parenting story.  I was in third grade, so 9.  That made my older brother 10, my kid brother 8, and my kid sister 5.  My mom would always go on about safety situations and what we ought to do in various situations.  One night, before my father got back from the hospital she decided to test us.  It was late fall, so dark early and cold outside.  We kids were in the family room watching T.V. Mom dons one of Dad's overcoats and a fedora.  She sneaks outside and goes to the window in the family room and starts to pound on it and to make strange sounds.  We yell for Mom.  She does not answer.  We thought she was upstairs but now think maybe she went to the store.  We believe some stranger is trying to break in.  With the collar of the coat pulled up and the hat brim down low we don't get that it is her doing one of her "tests"  Tommy grabs Mary and takes her to her room and locks the door. I run to the phone and call the cops.  Kevin grabs the .22 and he and I head upstairs to guard Mary's door.

Mom freaks.  She is outside, in the cold, wearing my father's stuff and it is starting to snow.  She goes to the door and tries to get in.  Oops, it locked behind her.  She is out there in her robe, an overcoat, and a fedora. 

We lived less than a mile from the cop shop. They get there in a hurry, before we figure out it was her.  She's standing out there trying to explain herself.  Eventually we figure out what's going on but not before the few nearby neighbors are starting to gather.  About then my Dad gets home. 

Memories, they make us rich.

Anyhow, back to the O.P.  Good luck.  This should get resolved.

 
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This seems really dumb...in NYC they give 11 year olds Metrocards to get to 6th grade on public transport without a parent.  

 
Just awful. Good luck.

My wife is a school social worker, and based on her stories, in my state at least, the folks at DCFS generally have their hands tied by the way that the laws are written. The system usually does it's job, at least somewhat, but per her, there are also plenty of times when either good people get screwed in some way or not-so-good people skate through based on some kind of legal minutiae.

 
Man, that really sucks. The only decision she made that I couldn't picture myself making as well if I were in her shoes is the part where she ignored the two calls because she didn't recognize the number - I think I would be paranoid enough to think any call during that time would potentially involve my kids. (Really, it's just one more reason why telemarketing sucks, since it causes our default to be not to answer our phones unless we know exactly who it is.) How do those security system calls work? Do they try to leave a message for you if you don't answer?

Anyway, parents make decisions 10x worse and 10x more often and both the  kids and parents come out fine. Some bad luck you guys had there. 

Hopefully, this all gets cleared up and it's something you can all laugh about years from now. Good luck!

 
I'd just lawyer up.  I would think a good lawyer and a common sense judge would make sure things work out okay. 

 
What a bunch of garbage. I was a latchkey kid growing up and was pretty much on my own most workdays around that age. Any judge with half a brain will throw out the charges quickly. Good luck Max.

 
Sorry this happened to you.  I wish the police would have exercised some judgment here, but perhaps there is some zero tolerance policy.  This should have been a warning.   I hope it turns out OK.  The situation stinks. 
Agreed. Why would a cop want to deal with writing this up, perhaps even having to go to court.  After talking to Max' wife why not use some discretion and write up the report as false alarm, talked to the mother and be done with it.  No harm no foul. 

 
Not to hijack but I had to laugh when I thought about a little EG babysitting:   Soft porn on old VHS tapes, playing poker with potato chips, doing shots of rootbeer, and an Oreo food eating challenge at the end of the night.
Not that far off.  The Ox and I once spent hours hacking the code to the Playboy Channel on our cable box when my mother was out for the evening.  We got it and watched soft core porn for one glorious evening.  The next morning, he decided to brag to our mother that we'd solved the code.  She didn't believe him, so he punched it in in front of her.  She promptly changed it, while I stood there in stunned disbelief.  I still give him #### about that to this day, 35 or so years later.

Around that same time (we were a few years older) we shot a video in which the OX crushed up a bunch of Oreos, moistened the resulting mess into a paste, and smeared them on toilet paper.  The camera cuts in and he's sitting on the toilet.  He grabs some TP off the roll and pantomimes wiping his butt, but he's actually dropping the paper behind him and picking up the stunt paper with the Oreos on it.  He then holds it up while Yams and I are acting amused/grossed out, then he proceeds to smear it on his face and slam the door on the camera while we pretend to recoil in horror and laugh at the same time.  I showed it to my friends in junior high/HS and to a man, they started gagging and wretching, thinking it was real. I think I still have the tape.

 
Not that far off.  The Ox and I once spent hours hacking the code to the Playboy Channel on our cable box when my mother was out for the evening.  We got it and watched soft core porn for one glorious evening.  The next morning, he decided to brag to our mother that we'd solved the code.  She didn't believe him, so he punched it in in front of her.  She promptly changed it, while I stood there in stunned disbelief.  I still give him #### about that to this day, 35 or so years later.

Around that same time (we were a few years older) we shot a video in which the OX crushed up a bunch of Oreos, moistened the resulting mess into a paste, and smeared them on toilet paper.  The camera cuts in and he's sitting on the toilet.  He grabs some TP off the roll and pantomimes wiping his butt, but he's actually dropping the paper behind him and picking up the stunt paper with the Oreos on it.  He then holds it up while Yams and I are acting amused/grossed out, then he proceeds to smear it on his face and slam the door on the camera while we pretend to recoil in horror and laugh at the same time.  I showed it to my friends in junior high/HS and to a man, they started gagging and wretching, thinking it was real. I think I still have the tape.
Nice!

BTW, when I go to like the post I get a notification that "You am not allowed to give reputation to this user."  what is that about?

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
Nice!

BTW, when I go to like the post I get a notification that "You am not allowed to give reputation to this user."  what is that about?
That's a feature in the software that gets tripped when you've reported someone's post to the mods.

 
Pipes said:
Agreed. Why would a cop want to deal with writing this up, perhaps even having to go to court.  After talking to Max' wife why not use some discretion and write up the report as false alarm, talked to the mother and be done with it.  No harm no foul. 
I'm not sure the legalities of being a mandated reporter because I'm not one, but I would imagine that a police officer could be putting himself or herself in serious jeopardy if they don't report what is - by the letter of the law in their state - something that needs to be reported.  

 
I've mentioned this before in a similar thread. There's a single mom on my street that has left her kids, alone, 9-5 all day in the summer for 2 solid years.  They were 9 and now 10 (twins).

Texas has no such latchkey law.  

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
Nice!

BTW, when I go to like the post I get a notification that "You am not allowed to give reputation to this user."  what is that about?
Does it have tags on it that say [/genericoffensiveurbanvoice]?

 

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