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CNN.com: Florida mom arrested after letting 7-year-old walk to the park alone


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http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrested-son-park/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

(CNN) -- After letting her 7-year-old son walk from their home to a park to play, a Florida mother faces up to five years in jail for child neglect.

Nicole Gainey, 34, was arrested on July 26 after her son, Dominic, was found by police alone in a park less than a half-mile from her Port St. Lucie home.

On Saturday afternoon, Gainey had given Dominic permission to walk to Sportsman's Park, a route he's familiar with since he uses it to ride his bike to school, her lawyer said. On the way, he passed a public pool, and someone asked him where his mother was.

"They asked me a couple questions, and I got scared, so I ran off to the park and they called the cops," Dominic Guerrisi told CNN affiliate WPTV.

An officer arrived at the park where Dominic was playing a short time later.

"Dominic checked in with his mom a few minutes before the police came and was getting ready to go home for dinner," said Gainey's attorney, John Whitehead, founder of the Virginia-based civil liberties group the Rutherford Institute.

He always has a cell phone with him and was wearing it in a case around his neck that his mother had made. According to Whitehead, the phone had fallen out of his pocket recently and she didn't want him to lose it.

When the officer asked Dominic whether his mother knew where he was, the child told him that she did and he'd just spoken to her on the phone, according to the police report.

Dominic told the police his name, address and mother's name but wasn't able to answer when asked for his date of birth. He was then driven home.

"When I saw the police cars pull up in my driveway, and the officers started asking me about Dominic, I was frantic to know whether he was OK," Gainey told CNN in an e-mail.

According to the report, Gainey told the officer that she let her son go to the park alone once or twice a week.

The arresting officer said that Gainey had failed to provide her son with care and supervision by allowing him to cross the street and go to the park alone. According to the report, he told her that there had been recent criminal activity in and around the park and a number of sex offenders lived nearby.

Gainey was arrested on a felony child neglect charge and taken to jail, leaving Dominic and her 17-year-old daughter at the house with her boyfriend. She was released seven hours later on $3,750 bond.

It's depressing to know that my kids are never going to experience a real childhood. Everything they do will need to be very close to a supervising adult.

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While I think that a half mile away is too much distance (just as me, now, knowing the public), this was very common when I grew up.

But I'm old, so there's that.

My oldest granddaughter could probably be a child model...she's absolutely beautiful. What scares me (with this story, and her), is that children are so easily abducted. But thanks to me, she can fight a little, but I wonder if it would be enough for her to get away.

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I agree that in this day and age you really shouldn't let a 7 year old go by themselves, but I think getting arrested and charged with a felony is a bit much. People really need to mind their own business. All because of a busy body at the pool.

Aren't we safer now than when we were kids?

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Let me get this straight. Time and time again you here people say "Where's the parents?" in cases such as this. Yet, you guys think this is an "over-reaction"? He's seven years old for crying out loud.

 

I'm not saying she should see jail time, but she needs to be held accountable. Comparing today's society to yesteryear's is an oxymoron considering the amount of sickos out there today vs then.

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I don't think she should be charged with a felenoy, but I have two kids a 5 year old and an 8 year old.  I live in a pretty suburban area.  I live less than 1/2 a mile from a park.

 

My 8 year old is even a responsible kid for being 8 (my 5 year old is not.  She's completely unfocused).

 

There is no way I'd let my 8 year old go to the park by herself.

 

And I have no problem with the cops stepping in and getting involved.  Somebody should say something to her.

 

If something happens to the kid, it is the community that is going to be paying for the response (e.g. if the kid gets abducted, it is the community that will be paying for the cops to look for the kid).

 

And I seriously doubt, she's going to be saying, it was my decision to let the kid walk to the park by himself so I'll take the responsibility, and I don't want the cops aggressively going out their way to look for my kid.

 

And that's what's lost today with the idea of people minding their own business, personal responsibility, and freedom.

 

People want it, until something goes wrong, and then they want the community's resources and help.

 

It cuts both ways.

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Comparing today's society to yesteryear's is an oxymoron considering the amount of sickos out there today vs then.

But is this really true, or does it just seem that way because we hear about the stories more than we used to?

What are the numbers?

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Let me get this straight. Time and time again you here people say "Where's the parents?" in cases such as this. Yet, you guys think this is an "over-reaction"? He's seven years old for crying out loud.

 

I'm not saying she should see jail time, but she needs to be held accountable. Comparing today's society to yesteryear's is an oxymoron considering the amount of sickos out there today vs then.

 

There are no more sickos today then it was back then, it's just reported on more than it used to be. 

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I agree that in this day and age you really shouldn't let a 7 year old go by themselves, but I think getting arrested and charged with a felony is a bit much. People really need to mind their own business. All because of a busy body at the pool.

 

Why exactly was it safer in the past?  It has always been risky letting kids walk by themselves just because the Internet and CNN weren't around to let you know of every abduction nationwide, making you more aware.

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Let me guess. You've made a tuxedo out of skin and you also tuck it in and under?

 

 

The same people that are defending the mother would be persecuting her had the child vanished or worse

But disaster can happen anywhere, anytime. So leave the kid at home, but what if the house burns down from an electrical fire, or a carbon monoxide poisoning, or a gas explosion, or a home invader, or an out of control car that crashes through the living room, or, hell, even a meteorite or a tree falling down?  All of these things are insanely remote, about the same as a random kidnapping perhaps?  Point is, you can't avoid life...**** sometimes happens and there's nothing you can do about it no matter what.  If the kid is responsible for his/her age, has a phone and knowledge of home address and parents' phone number, etc, and the park is close to home and familiar, i don't see the big deal.  I did the same thing all the time when I was that age, and no sharknado or boogie man ever came to gobble me up.  Ya dig?

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My mom would have had life in prison when I was 7 years old.

 

I was 8 years old in 1989. What happened that Christmas?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Melissa_Brannen

 

Society was far more dangerous in 1989 because I, as an 8 year old, didn't have a cell phone that my parents could use to track me, social media wasn't around to make it aware I was missing (instantly) there were no amber alerts. 

 

I see no reason why this mother needs to be held accountable. 

 

As a matter of fact, can somebody tell me the last time there was an abduction involving an under 10 year old child with a stranger doing the abduction? It actually seemed more prevalent when I was a child compared to today 

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LOL @ Pilfan. The kid is seven ****ing years old! Seven years old! would NEVER let a seven year old roam the streets alone. Not letting a seven year old do that doesn't mean one is living in fear. It means they are being cautious to today's society. A society that we are exposed to now more then ever.

 

Do you have kids? If not? Then you really can't comprehend. "Ya dig?"

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LOL @ Pilfan. The kid is seven ****ing years old! Seven years old! would NEVER let a seven year old roam the streets alone. Not letting a seven year old do that doesn't mean one is living in fear. It means they are being cautious to today's society. A society that we are exposed to now more then ever.

 

Do you have kids? If not? Then you really can't comprehend. "Ya dig?"

 

To be perfectly frank we are far more scared as a society today then ever.

 

This coming from a child of the '80s who rode his bike around pretty much wherever

 

My thought is if more parents let their kids out, and the neighborhoods and streets were flooded with kids, as opposed to empty after school, we wouldn't be nearly as worried. The opposite has happened as kids are holed up in a house all day or confined to the backyard with the 7 ft high privacy fence on a play date

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 As a matter of fact, can somebody tell me the last time there was an abduction involving an under 10 year old child with a stranger doing the abduction? It actually seemed more prevalent when I was a child compared to today 

You mean when some guy abducts three young girls, imprisons them, rapes them and impregnates them? You want more examples in recent years?

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To be perfectly frank we are far more scared as a society today then ever.

 

This coming from a child of the '80s who rode his bike around pretty much wherever

 

Result of Internet news and 24 hour cable news.  Nothing's hidden anymore.  Can you imagine Law and Order SVU running in the 1960s?  People would've  been shocked.

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LOL @ Pilfan. The kid is seven ****ing years old! Seven years old! would NEVER let a seven year old roam the streets alone. Not letting a seven year old do that doesn't mean one is living in fear. It means they are being cautious to today's society. A society that we are exposed to now more then ever.

 

Do you have kids? If not? Then you really can't comprehend. "Ya dig?"

Depends on the street.  Downtown Detroit or a home that's near a busy highway, nope wouldn't do it.  A suburb near a park (presuming a safe neighborhood)? Perhaps.  Again, I rode my bike to a park a few blocks from my parents home all the time when i was age 7+, and i didn't even have a cell phone then or anything.  Maybe 7 is a little early for some kids, but it also depends on the maturity of the individual child and if the parent thinks the child is responsible enough to play outside without a leash or a helicopter hovering overhead.

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