“I have never felt threatened by a single person in this town until meeting those officers and the social worker.”
It was Super Bowl Sunday in February 2019. Cynthia Rivers and her husband decided that their kids, ages seven and nine, deserved a long-promised treat for cleaning their rooms: the right to walk to Dunkin’ Donuts by themselves.
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A few minutes later, the River parents heard a knock at the door. It was the police.
The first cop to show up “said he didn’t think it was safe for the kids to walk by themselves,” Rivers tells Reason. “We told him that while we did feel it was safe, we agreed to not allow them to walk around town unsupervised.”
“We thought that would have been the end of it,” Rivers added, “until three more officers showed up.”
The first cop sent Rivers’ husband to retrieve the kids, who had only made it about two blocks. Then mom, dad, and the kids faced a barrage of questions.
“They told us that it wasn’t safe for kids to walk down the street, that there are registered sex offenders all over town that could take them, that drug dealers were going to give them drugs, and that it was ‘a different world now,'” says Rivers.
She tried to dispute what the police were saying, and one of them asked if she watched the news.
The police report, which was reviewed by Reason, makes clear that the police were obsessed with the possibility of sex offenders harming the children. Indeed, they pressed the Rivers to search the sex offender registry to learn which of their neighbors were on it.
More fearmongering from the police desperately fighting to be relevant to their community. Need to make those arrest quotas and news headlines on how they’re protecting society from “monsters”. So what if they have to manufacture some in order to instill paranoia? It’s worth sacrificing the rights and liberties of a few citizens for the good of the community. The ends ALWAYS justify the means.
I’d be seeking another lawyer to sue the department for some serious harassments. This sounds insane. This is what all this BS has done. Now it’s even targeting your average person and penalizing them. SCOTUS needs to get their asses in gear. It’s no longer “just” affecting those of us on the registry.
If this happened over in Hartford, I bet you those cops wouldn’t have given a rats azz about little black or brown children walking by themselves
Why should any parent be worried about their child walking to a donut shop alone? Doesn’t everyone realize that donut shops and the roads leading to them are full of cops? Its the safest place for a child to be.
I would approach the parents so as to warn them about letting their kids walk alone given the fact that there are so many rogue cops patrolling the streets. They’re all over the place. They could stop the kids without cause, and who knows what will happen? They could wind up like George Floyd or Tyre Nichols and so many others. I would suggest every kid be outfitted with a GoPro camera if they are going to be allowed to walk to the donut shop, or anywhere else by themselves. In fact, not a bad idea for ALL citizens, in this day and age. It’s a different world now.
Remember local jurisdiction, while recognized under state’s authority, still completely exists outside of the federal constitution which sanctioned only two, and with damn good reason.
The cop also mentioned possible drug dealer that could give drugs to their kids. Why can’t the parents just look up online where these drug dealers live? Oh wait, they are not deemed too much of a threat to the public, so there is no online shaming list. I like how the parents said that they never felt in danger, and either they looked at Megan’s Law and did not care, or the never thought to look. In either case, nothing happened to their children.
You have got to be kidding me!!!!
Just more FEAR driven into parents and the public for little reason.
Hey “Stranger Danger” still exists everyone. Run home, lock your doors, close the shades and never come out to the light of day again. Teach your kids the same thing instead of preparing your kids to be responsible growing adults. Keep them hidden in a cage all their childhood years and at 18 set them free alone to a world they will know nothing about. Why can’t the “new adults” make reasonable decisions on thier own – gee, I don’t know.
“One of them asked if she watched the news”
Take a wild guess as to which “news” channel he was referring to…