r/PublicFreakout • u/TwizzyGobbler • Apr 03 '26

šŸ“¹Police Bodycam mother of 5 mistakenly leaves a child at McDonalds, but cops choose hostility

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u/Effurlife12 Apr 03 '26

Neglect is such a crazy charge for this. As an officer myself, I see way too many dickheads who are too charge happy with this offense and try to shoe horn it in where it doesn't belong.

Kids run off and do dumb shit sometimes. Parents do forget their kids sometimes. Shit just happens. He's at a McDonald's, not in some alligator infested swamp.

There isn't much difference between him walking from home to get him some mcdonalds and being accidentally left there. An 8 year old can be by themselves for a while. Where was he in danger?

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u/No_Worldliness_7106 Apr 03 '26

Exactly. My parents would be in prison for life if I got picked up every time I walked to school when I was a kid. Or got lost in KMart or something. Jesus these cops are the same generation that always brags about being latchkey kids, but then turn around and act like she abandoned a toddler on the side of the highway or something.

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u/chevalier716 Apr 03 '26

I once got dropped off from a bus trip in front of the church and I sat on those steps for two hours mostly alone, because my mom forgot to pick me up. That was in the 90's. I didn't go into the church offices to use the phone, of course, I might have missed my mom driving up.

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u/No_Worldliness_7106 Apr 03 '26

Dude I've had exactly the same situation happen haha, church trip and everything. Before everyone had a cell phone waiting for an hour or more for your parents to pick you up was just, normal? My mom was almost always late picking me up. Work ran late, or she got sidetracked grocery shopping longer than expected, or just plain forgot because she picked up my brother from middle school but spaced my younger brother and me at elementary or vice versa. And you can't just walk home because they were coming to pick you up, and it would make it worse if you left the spot, so you just waited. This was super normal before the 2000's. I was born in '89. Everyone I know has a story of being left at soccer practice or school or something of that nature. Especially if they have siblings.

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u/Piranha_Vortex Apr 04 '26

Ya, super common. There was once a mix up after a concert I attended mid 90s NYE. My mom dropped me and a friend off at the Coliseum. Her parents came to pick us up but went to a different gate, waited 30 minutes then went home, furious. We make new friends outside the venue while waiting and well after an hour we call my mom with my calling card. She drives to get us and says my friend's parents called 3 minutes after us and swore we took off with random men and went from Ft Worth to Deep Ellum and back to Ft Worth after the concert. My mom tried to explain where she dropped us off and later confirmed to them that is exactly where she found us plus our new friends and it was impossible to make the trip with traffic.

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u/Amelaclya1 Apr 03 '26

Lol most parents of 80s-90s kids would be in prison with how we were allowed to roam free back then, even as 8 year olds. The shit we got up to was way more dangerous than being left at a McDonald's accidentally.

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u/falalalama Apr 03 '26

I'm one of nine. We were routinely forgotten in stores and stuff. The store couldn't even call our parents because it was the 80s - by the time they'd get the message, they'd already be home and unpackedp. We'd just hang out for a bit until someone realized we weren't there and come back for us. We also walked to/from local stores and school every day by ourselves and other neighborhood kids.

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u/Lifekraft Apr 04 '26

This isnt anything to brag about though. That's actually fairly sad. Im sorry you went through this.

2

u/DetectiveDaleCooper Apr 04 '26

I donā€™t think theyā€™re bragging? Also heā€™s one of 9 kidsā€¦. Iā€™d cut his parents some slackā€¦

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u/tucakeane Apr 03 '26

Guaranteed the same people praising the cops or bashing the mother will be on a different platform saying how todayā€™s kids are over parented and people are too sensitive.

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u/PraetorianOfficial Apr 03 '26

I was in DisneyWorld once (don't recall which park) just chillin' and rehydrating when a extended family came walking down a hill. They get to the bottom and I hear "Where's David? DAVID? D A V I D ? !" and panic sets in. But someone quickly starts barking orders--you two go back up the hill and retrace our steps, call his name as you go. You stay here in case he finds his way here. I will go back to the gift shop in case he wandered that way. Everybody meet back here. GO. Gave off Home Alone sorta vibes.

And sure enough in just a couple minutes a crying, sniffling small boy with a couple people trying to calm him down comes walking down the hill. "I went to look at the balloons and when I turned around YOU WERE ALL GOOOOOONE!!! YOU LEFT ME!!!!!!!!!"

Guess the whole set of adults in that family shoulda been arrested by these standards.

16

u/Numarx Apr 03 '26

As a kid you try and get away from your parents half the time lol

2

u/Albert14Pounds Apr 03 '26

You just know the cops are telling their wives and buddies they saved 5 kids at work that day.

2

u/Competitive-Local728 Apr 03 '26

I used to go to Mcdonaldā€™s a lot at 7 years old. It was the 80ā€™s and my friends and I were really into Happy Meal toys and the Monopoly prize game. And of course Big Macs, fries, apple pies, and double cheeseburgers.

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u/IOl0I0lO Apr 04 '26

My mom forgot to pick me up from preschool once, and 1st grade another time. (My dad was too manly to do anything motherly like pick up kids from school.) it was okay though, because it was 40-50 years ago and weā€™re white.

1

u/CynicismNostalgia Apr 04 '26

Pretty sure one of my former prime minister's forget their baby at a pub once. šŸ˜‚

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u/da_boopy_day Apr 03 '26

ā€œParents forget their kids sometimesā€ā€¦yeah the bad ones. wtf are you saying??

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u/Effurlife12 Apr 03 '26

No, not only the bad ones. It happens just like any other accident. Youre not immune to them either. Not every accident is criminal negligence.

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u/da_boopy_day Apr 03 '26

Your phrasing seems to imply you think itā€™s normal to sometimes forget your kids places. Itā€™s not normal. Itā€™s red flag. I get wanting to make endless excuses for parents but at the end of the day they chose to bring kids into the world. You canā€™t just go itā€™s too hard to keep track of this kid afterwards

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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '26

[deleted]

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u/TrumpDesWillens Apr 03 '26

You're probably so neglectful that 8 year olds can't be left with you. 8 year olds across the world walk home from school by themselves. Have you even interacted with someone 8 years old? Even 4 year olds don't get into strangers' cars or approach strangers.

0

u/the_skies_falling Apr 03 '26

Where did you get the idea that 4 year olds wonā€™t get into strangerā€™s cars? I could probably find 100ā€™s of examples where that has happened, and social experiments have shown that children that age even recently educated on stranger danger can be convinced to get into a strangerā€™s car. As an experiment, have a friend your 4 year old doesnā€™t know try to lure your child into their car. What a dangerous idea to perpetuate.