Police in Georgia arrested and handcuffed a mother in front of her children after her 10-year-old son left the family home to walk to a town less than a mile away.
Deputies from the Fannin County Sheriff’s Office charged Brittany Patterson with reckless conduct on Oct. 30 for letting her son leave the family’s sprawling property and walk to nearby Mineral Bluff after he became bored.
Ms. Patterson, 41, who has been sharing her arrest with media outlets this week, told Business Insider that she had run out for a quick errand when her son Soren decided to leave home.
A woman eventually approached the boy as he walked along the side of a road that has a 25-35 mph speed limit. The woman asked the boy if he was OK, and he said he was — but the stranger called police anyway and had Soren picked up by deputies.
Ms. Patterson, a mother of four, got a call from the sheriff’s office soon afterward explaining what had happened.
“I was not panicking, as I know the roads and know he is mature enough to walk there without incident,” Ms. Patterson told Reason, adding that the deputy disagreed. “She kept mentioning how he could have been run over or kidnapped or ’anything’ could have happened.”
She said her homeschooled children are also “free-range” kids, who are allowed to wander into the woods or over to neighbors’ houses as long as they let her know. Ms. Patterson has immediate family living on or near the property, so her kids can visit their relatives at will.
Once Ms. Patterson returned home, she said she scolded Soren for leaving home without telling her and then put the incident behind her — until deputies arrived at her door that evening and arrested her.
“At the station, they fingerprinted me. They stripped me down and made me change clothes into an orange jumpsuit. They scanned my body and took my mug shot,” Ms. Patterson told Business Insider.
Ms. Patterson said her mom got her out of jail on $500 bail that same night. She faces up to a $1,000 fine and a year in jail if convicted of reckless conduct.
The county prosecutor offered to drop charges as long as Ms. Patterson signed a “safety plan,” but an attorney retained by the mom said her kids would lose their independence if she signed the plan.
Ms. Patterson said she won’t sign and will fight the charges in court.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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