Government puts kids in foster care because they were playing outside alone

Your daily dose of government gone wild today comes from Florida, where a nosy neighbor decided to call the cops because an 11-year-old boy was playing outside of his own house while waiting for his parents to get home. The result? The parents were arrested and both of their children were placed in state care. From Reason Magazine:

The boy didn’t have a key, so he played basketball in the yard. He was alone for 90 minutes. A neighbor called the cops, and when the parents arrived—having been delayed by traffic and rain—they were arrested for negligence.

They were put in handcuffs, strip searched, fingerprinted, and held overnight in jail.

It would be a month before their sons—the 11-year-old and his 4-year-old brother—were allowed home again. Only after the eldest spoke up and begged a judge to give him back to his parents did the situation improve.

So his parents were delayed getting home and the child played in his own yard while waiting. Heaven forbid children play unsupervised! Obviously the solution to this “problem” was to call the cops, arrest the parents, and remove all the children from the home and put them in state care, where who knows what kind of danger they would actually be in.

Just a few questions for the nosy neighbor:

1. Did you really think the child was in danger? If so, why didn’t you just keep an eye on the child to make sure nothing happened?

2. If you thought he was in danger because he had no access to water, why didn’t you ask the child if he needed water or anything?

And for the cop/judge/CPS/prosecutor:

1. How is taking a child out of their home and arresting his parents in the child’s best interest?

Without government, who will save the children?