"Pick up that can"
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What technically separates this from kidnapping?

Honest question.

For truancy officers to do their jobs properly, shouldn't they effing KNOW what days the kids have off?

I'm sure the local Catholic schools would gladly clue them in on holy days, pastor's feast days, and the like.

/was a Catholic schoolboy
/in the early 1960s
/in Sioux City, Iowa (Saint Boniface)

My kids are in parochial school. On days off they get asked why, but people believe them when they explain. My little girls would be scared to death if this happened to them. And they wonder why people grow up hating cops.

Where were two 12 year olds and two 8 year olds that they were unsupervised by parents yet readily available for a cop to pick up and transport?

police policy is that private school students who are out of school on a day that public schools are in session must carry a letter from the school.

Came here to make sure that "Papers, please!" was properly referenced. Okay, everything looks in order. Move along, citizen.

Okay, maybe I live in some weird fairy-land, but since when do the police force combat truancy? And what about those who are out of school but look young? Can they take in an 19 year old who looks 16? Or is this only for the young ones?

What if the kids had had an "adult" with them would they have been stopped then?

The whole thing to me comes off as a weird invasion of privacy and misuse/waste/abuse of police time and manpower.

All this outrage over having your kids carry a note from the school? Why? Is it that really hard?

If a private school told me to have my kids keep a letter on them so that the truant officer knows that they are from a school with a holiday different from the usual public holidays... my reaction would be "oh". Hardly a big imposition and certainly not 1984 or imposing some Nazi-like policy.

Maybe I've been in China too long. But strikes as a bit of whining over nothing.

What? No Papers?

Crump said police policy is that private school students who are out of school on a day that public schools are in session must carry a letter from the school.

"If a child is excused or suspended from school, they are required to carry a notice indicating as such in case they are stopped. The Department is only informed of the status of the D.C. Public Schools. Efforts are being made to ensure that both charter and private schools provide information on a daily basis to the Patrol Services and School Security Bureau," Crump said.

Their own damn policy states that they didn't need a letter. Being excused or suspended from school is different from not having to be at school in the first place.

oneodd1: Where were two 12 year olds and two 8 year olds that they were unsupervised by parents yet readily available for a cop to pick up and transport?

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. Your 8 year old is off wondering the streets, getting picked up by cops and all of a sudden you're "safety conscious" because the van doesn't have seat belts?

oneodd1: Where were two 12 year olds and two 8 year olds that they were unsupervised by parents yet readily available for a cop to pick up and transport?

Let me guess, you grew up in the suburbs and every waking minute of your day an adult was around driving you from place to place? Lets see starting when I was 7 and my brother was 9 we walked to school everyday by ourselves. When I was 8 and he was 10 we stayed home alone for a couple of hours after school by ourselves. When I was 8 I used to take the public bus around the city by myself. Statistically it is probably safer for these kids to be walking around with each other then if their parents would have driven to some sort of day care.

Bunch of helicopter parents here. I was walking/riding my bike a half mile to school and back by myself when I was 6. I never had a parent take me to school or bring me home. And other than my older sister, I didn't have a heck of a lot of supervision until my parents came home from work. Yes, at 7 years old I carried my own key to the house so I could let myself in when I got home.

cyberworm: yarnothuntin: oneodd1: Where were two 12 year olds and two 8 year olds that they were unsupervised by parents yet readily available for a cop to pick up and transport?

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. Your 8 year old is off wondering the streets, getting picked up by cops and all of a sudden you're "safety conscious" because the van doesn't have seat belts?

I always found the fear of kidnapping to be funny.

Kidnapping isn't that common. Nobody wants your kids.

Except your ex etc. Who are the perpetrators in the overwhelming majority of those rare child kidnapping cases.

Sir Cumference the Flatulent: FTFA:
Crump said police policy is that private school students who are out of school on a day that public schools are in session must carry a letter from the school.

Training them to be good little citizens...produce your papers on demand.

but public school students who have the day off when private school is in session do not have to carry a note.

Satan_Himself: What technically separates this from kidnapping?

Honest question.

The truant officer was acting within the scope of authority.

I am going to bring race into it. These were likely white kids, therefore the distrusting officer took them home. Had they been black, they would have gone stright to juvie.

Why? Because minors have no legal rights. Once you remove the ability for any section of the population to vote(minors) their rights can and always will be eroded. The same thing occurs with the whole "Felony = No Vote" scenario. This policy assumes the guilt of the minor unless they can prove their innocence with a note. Shouldn't you be required to have actually done something wrong before they make you prove you are innocent of it?

If you don't have a vote and you don't have big money, you don't get political change in your favor, ever.

Even minors are people too. When my home town passed a law saying that minors had to be indoors or with a parent by midnight I was pissed. This is about making law enforcement's job easier, see a kid on the street, you have a reason to stop and question him. I'm of the mind that no law should be passed to ease the ability for police to stop citizens who have not been directly seen or reported to have committed any crime, even if they are minors.

It's not supposed to be an easy job and trampling on the rights of children isn't the way to make it better.

I'd have to say that the only thing worse than this blatant injustice would be to raise those children believing in a magical fat man that could travel through chimneys and deliver toys to all the children of the world. Wow, what a mind fark that would be right? Maybe when they get older and you have to break their hearts and admit that there is no Santa and that's why not all kids get presents on Christmas you could include some instruction on how to bend over and take it from "The Man" while you spend your life working to make the money to afford farking Christmas presents.

/Anti-curfew
//Anti-Christmas

thegoodbubba: et me guess, you grew up in the suburbs and every waking minute of your day an adult was around driving you from place to place? Lets see starting when I was 7 and my brother was 9 we walked to school everyday by ourselves. When I was 8 and he was 10 we stayed home alone for a couple of hours after school by ourselves. When I was 8 I used to take the public bus around the city by myself. Statistically it is probably safer for these kids to be walking around with each other then if their parents would have driven to some sort of day care.

Yeah me too- but not only that, I rode around in the front seat with no seat belt and that was a car. Hell, I was often left in the car when my mom went shopping. School buses and city buses didn't have seat belts either. I just think it's a weird thing to complain about.

cyberworm: Another Government Employee: Satan_Himself: What technically separates this from kidnapping?

Honest question.

The truant officer was acting within the scope of authority.

I am going to bring race into it. These were likely white kids, therefore the distrusting officer took them home. Had they been black, they would have gone stright to juvie.

I would like to honestly know then, what authority does a truancy officer hold over students that aren't part of the public school system? Isn't the scope of a truancy officer's job only to enforce public school policies and not those of private/parochial school students?

Depending on how the truancy ordnance is written, it would normally assume all those under age 16 would be required to be in a school setting between 8:00-3:00, Monday through Friday. The only way the officer would be able to determine otherwise would be to stop the kids and ask.

cyberworm: I always found the fear of kidnapping to be funny.

Kidnapping isn't that common. Nobody wants your kids.

No that's not what I ment, like many in the thread- I spent a lot of time alone at age 8 (latch key kid etc) walked to school, the mall etc. Started babysitting at age 10. I just think the seat belt complaint is weird.

When I was in school the cops would do this more on-demand I think than just randomly. If the school suspected you were truanting in so-and-so location they'd call them and they'd check, but you had to be pretty predictable to get caught. Otherwise, just walking around town on a school day, they'd only bother the kids who were standing around in suspicious looking groups smoking stuff.

I did once walk by a school a year or so after I left only to have some patrolling teacher try to call me back. I think after the gesture I gave in return they must have realized their mistake, as no cops ever did drive by despite my passing one of the predictable areas.

/I'll consider this a life lesson for these kids.
//You may not be doing anything wrong, but that doesn't mean cops won't dream something up.

cyberworm: Heh. My apologies if you feel I read something that wasn't there. I was just piggybacking on your comment to make mine. I too was a latchkey kid for as long as I could remember. Granted I grew up in a small town but it's all relatively the same. Besides, on those long walks etc we usually traveled in packs back to our neighborhoods. I'm sure most others in the same situation did the same. :)

No worries =) yeah that's usually how it goes- packs and what not. Do school buses have seat belts now? I remember it was always "fun" to sit behind the rear wheel well so you'd get launched every time we crossed a bump or rail road tracks.

Another Government Employee: I am going to bring race into it. These were likely white kids, therefore the distrusting officer took them home. Had they been black, they would have gone stright to juvie.

Or to look at it another way, a DC truancy officer might've been thinking "holy shiat, white kids misbehaving! Instant quota fulfillment."

Back in elementary school, I got pulled over by a black-and-white cruiser while rollerskating in front of my grandmother's house, in full view of my grandmother, on a teacher in-service day because the cop thought I was being truant.

/to be fair, this was Claremont, CA, which didn't even allow drive-thrus in restaurants until the 90s

"Why aren't you in school?!?"

Becuz my dad owns this state's biggest law firm.
Arrest me. PLEASE!

Bodine Wilson: Except your ex etc. Who are the perpetrators in the overwhelming majority of those rare child kidnapping cases.

And the random pedophile, who will leave them dead in a dumpster.
/Have a young daughter, paranoia is par for the course.

Without Fail: Bodine Wilson: Except your ex etc. Who are the perpetrators in the overwhelming majority of those rare child kidnapping cases.

And the random pedophile, who will leave them dead in a dumpster.
/Have a young daughter, paranoia is par for the course.

Yeah my 7 year old daughter insists on going to the corner bus stop by herself, which drives me nuts whenever I think about it, but then I remember how at 9 I rode my bike 13 miles regularly across town to the local university.

thegoodbubba: oneodd1: Where were two 12 year olds and two 8 year olds that they were unsupervised by parents yet readily available for a cop to pick up and transport?

Let me guess, you grew up in the suburbs and every waking minute of your day an adult was around driving you from place to place? Lets see starting when I was 7 and my brother was 9 we walked to school everyday by ourselves. When I was 8 and he was 10 we stayed home alone for a couple of hours after school by ourselves. When I was 8 I used to take the public bus around the city by myself. Statistically it is probably safer for these kids to be walking around with each other then if their parents would have driven to some sort of day care.

Hope you don't twist an ankle jumping to conclusions like that. I grew up in the country but had experiences similar to yours. It wasn't uncommon for us to ride our bikes 10-15 miles away. My concern (for the other replies) wasn't so much kidnapping as it was unsupervised children. I like to be involved with my children and go with them when they are more than a mile or so from the house. We have a city park about a mile from the house and we generally go there together--not so much for their safety but to do things as a family and to get my lazy arse off the computer. I do give my 10 year old a lot of lee-way and he has yet to betray my trust. He goes pretty much where he wants and if he doesn't want to go with us that's cool too. The article was light on details so I can't determine whether I'd let my children be in the same situation but my question was legit.

Also, your childhood and mine are mostly irrelevant to this discussion because this isn't the same environment as when we grew up. If our parents left us in the car with it running or let us ride 10 miles to the gas station to buy candy no one batted an eye. With the over-reacting officials and "do-gooders" a parent could quite feasibly go to jail for the same actions today.

damageddude: So you don't work during the week?

Careful with that ankle. Are all jobs M-F 8-5?

TFA: The students ... asked the officer to call their parents.

Yeah, I'm sure they asked him to do something, but I doubt it went along the lines of "please, sir, telephone my mommy".

damageddude: So you don't work during the week?

To answer your question though my wife stays at home with the kids and I work (M-F 8-5)

markfara: /was a Catholic schoolboy
/in the early 1960s
/in Sioux City, Iowa (Saint Boniface)

wow, i dont think that one is around here anymore, just bishop heelan.

/nothing to add to actual discussion

This is a classic: If you, (the police), are going to act like an asshat, then I, (the parent), are going to trump your irresponsible act by pointing out what YOU are doing wrong.

Government: If they did not have power they would be great for comedic relief.

remus: What? No Papers?

Thank you, first thing I though of about that BS policy.