Mother gets arrested and spends 18 hours in jail for letting her children play outside unsupervised

Huffington Post reports:

Tammy Cooper, a stay-at-home mom who lives in La Porte, Texas, was arrested earlier this month after a neighbor reported her for allegedly letting her kids play outside on their motorized scooters unsupervised.

Cooper, who spent 18 hours in jail overnight, says she was watching her children, ages 6 and 9, from a lawn chair during the time of the incident. The family lives in a cul-de-sac, and Cooper told KPRC that the safe location was one of the reasons she had chosen to reside there.

When police showed up at Cooper’s home to arrest the mother for child endangerment, her kids protested.

“My daughter had him [the police officer] around the leg saying, “Please, please don’t take my mom to jail. Please, she didn’t do anything wrong,’” Cooper told the station.

Here’s a video of a TV news report on this:

The neighbor who called the police said that the children were playing outside unsupervised, and the police officer arrested their mother for so-called “child endangerment.” It later turned out that the mother actually had been outside watching her children – and so the charges were dropped.

But even if the mother hadn’t been outside watching her children – even if she had been inside – it would still not have been a legitimate reason to have her arrested. I mean – to any rational person who values freedom – it would not have been a legitimate reason to have her arrested. Obviously, to the neighbor who called the police, as well as to the people who write and enforce the laws, it would have been a legitimate reason to have her arrested – and that’s a sad shame.