PBB False Positive Alert: Mom and Dad Arrested for Hanging Baby from Clothesline
Occasionally, while looking for stories of “bad-behaving parents”, I find cases in which the parents are engaged in fully acceptable behavior, but taxpayer time and money are squandered “prosecuting” them for some innocuous “crime”. We’ve all heard of instances, for example, where some minimum-wage flunkie in a photo lab calls Child Protective Services over innocent pics of a naked child, or of a dad giving his kid a raspberry. I’m dedicating a new occasional column, the False Positive Alert, to tracking such cases. While it’s important to vilify those folks who abuse their kids, it’s equally important to call out public servants when they waste time persecuting the innocent.
Today’s possible False Positive Alert comes from Somerset, England, where - tada! - a minimum-wage flunkie reported two unnamed parents to the coppers after he processed a photo of their baby hanging off of a clothesline. Now, I’m not saying that this is the world’s brightest idea. Obviously, there are any number of ways that Mr. and Mrs. Anne Geddes could’ve fucked this up, and injured their youngling. But is this a “‘crime” that warrants investigating them on charges of “child cruelty”? Hell no. They were trying to get a funny picture to post on the Internet. Compared to the crimes we’ve documented here, this isn’t even in the same ballpark.
Unless that roll of film also has snaps of the couple blowing crack-pipe smoke in their baby’s face, howzabout we drop this case, and go after the criminals who are doing actual damage to their kids instead?
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4 opinions for PBB False Positive Alert: Mom and Dad Arrested for Hanging Baby from Clothesline
naremannn
May 10, 2007 at 3:49 am
we no need an education
NIKKI
May 10, 2007 at 4:26 am
this is crazy! was the baby hurt? even if the parents are poor, do they for the most part provide for the baby? They were just goofing around. Trying to get a funny pic of the little guy! Remember the little girl that was 8 months old that was raped by her father and uncle. Then the family fenced off the grave site so no one could bring flowers. Well the only pictures of that baby were autopsy pictures! So what these people were taking silly pics of the baby! The neighbor should be slapped! Just for being stupid! We all have taken silly pics of our kids. I have some of my babies when they were naked. Like at bathtime. I have one when we were potty training my son and he would take off his underwear and run around naked! He was running and scratching his butt cheek! It’s really cute!
NIKKI
May 10, 2007 at 4:38 am
Zeroboss, I am with you on this one! CPS will ride people like this but let a jerk have his/her kids back so they can kill ‘em! My husband was “boxing” with our son (6) the other day, and my son was acting like he got “knocked out” so when he fell he got carpet burn on his forhead. I was like what happened? my son said with his snaggle tooth grin(he lost his two front teeth 3 weeks ago AND IS SOOOOOOO CUTE) “DADDY knock me out mommy!” Although there was no contact, If u were watching from afar u could thought differently. So, yes we are to be concerned for all the children we come in contact with We MUST ALSO BE CAREFUL AND LOOK AT THE ENTIRE SITUATION. sOME PARENTS SPANK some don’t should I call the police if a kids gets a swat on the butt? Probably not. Should I call if the child is being hit too hard and multiple times. YES. It’s not very hard to tell if a kid is being hurt…look in the child’s eyes. That’s my opinion
rockdoll_71
Dec 3, 2007 at 3:17 am
I’m with you on this one, sounds like they were only goofing around. I took a pic of my four month old in a Santa hat and his diaper BECAUSE IT WAS ADORABLE. Now, if some dumbass wanted to say that was child porn, I would have been in a world of trouble but we all know, there are idiots like that.
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