So much for the all American family. That is according to this article from newsource Reason, published on Monday, January 30th., headlined, “Connecticut Parents Arrested for Letting Kids, Ages 7 and 9, Walk to Dunkin’ Donuts.”
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.
This was in Killingly, Connecticut, a suburban town in the northeast part of the state. The Rivers’ lived near an elementary school, library, state police barracks, sidewalks, crosswalks, many Victorian-style homes, and the aforementioned donut shop. The kids gathered $7, and off they went.
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.”
“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.
But whatever the rationale, the officers proceeded to charge Rivers’ husband with risk of injury to a minor. They charged Rivers separately for the same thing. Then they arrested her husband and took him away.
National Director of the Knights Party of the Ku Klux Klan, centrally based in Harrison, Arkansas, Thomas Robb said, “Boy, how things have changed. When I was a youth growing up, this was common behavior. Parents rewarded their children for helping around the house, and staying out of trouble. Many times my Mother sent me to the corner market to get groceries she needed to make our family dinner. Nobody thought that was a bad thing. Fast forward to today in America, parents are being arrested for simply rewarding their 7 and 9 year-old children by allowing them to go get some doughnuts. Of course our streets are not safe anymore for children, or adults, but I have a problem with parents being arrested for raising their family with values. Instead of arresting parents, why don’t they arrest the drug dealers in the neighborhood? And what are child molesters doing out of prison? If they’re dangerous enough that children can’t walk in their neighborhoods, why are child molesters in our society? The criminals are rewarded with freedom, and parents go to jail for the crimes these criminals commited. If this isn’t backwards policing, I don’t know what is.”