In a hallelujah moment for parents everywhere, charges have been dropped against Susan Terrillion, the Maryland mom who took her kids, 8 and 9, on a trip to to Rehoboth Beach, DE, and left them at their vacation home while she went to pick up dinner 4.5 miles away.
While she was gone the kids, who’d been instructed to stay inside, didn’t. Instead, they took the family’s two dogs out to relieve themselves. The unleashed dogs proceeded to run off, and a man driving by almost hit them (the dogs, that is). As he got out to help the kids retrieve their pets, he asked them where their mother was, and one of them spilled the beans. (The other dutifully told him, “She’s in the shower.”) The guy then called the police. Here’s the story from back when it happened, in August. As I noted at the time: That’ll teach moms to go get their kids some food.
Anyway, the cops arrived and arrested Terrillion on two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, which is a great way to start a vacation. They also reported her to Child Protective Services.
And yet — wonderfully! sanely! humanely! — here it is, a month or so later, and the case has been dropped. As Jessica Masulli Reyes of The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal reports: “The Delaware Department of Justice determined it could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed a crime.”
Reasonable doubt? Ask me they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she had done anything out of the norm. Of course, the cops defended themselves, issuing a statement that said:
“In this case, as in any other, the primary focus of the police is the protection of human life, especially those who cannot protect themselves,” the statement said.
It went on to say that in this case and all others the officers of the Rehoboth Beach Police Department “wear the badge on their chest with pride as a symbol of justice with emphasis on moral and ethical decision making.”
How moral and ethical is it to second guess a mom of children who were not beaten, not starved, not abused? Worse, it seems as if the mom may still have to answer to the authorities, as the prosecutors said:
“To the extent that this matter required state intervention, the prosecutors believed that it might more appropriately come from child welfare authorities rather than through a criminal prosecution of the parent.”
As if being harassed by a government agency that can take away your kids is so much better than being harassed by a government agency that can lock you up.
David DeLugas, head of the National Association of Parents, represented Terrillion and summed it up to me this way:
A child walking alone, walking a dog, riding a bike, at an arcade, etc. is not likely to suffer injury by the mere fact the child is without an adult hovering. Thus, it is not a crime for her children to be there without her while she runs out to get food to go.
I can understand that the fact that if the kids had not run outside and if the dogs had not been unleashed, this case would never have materialized. But we have to have room in the law for imperfect moments, imperfect kids and imperfect parents. Otherwise we are all sunk. – L.
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31 Comments
She is lucky she was in Delaware. In Maryland, where she is from, there is no question that she broke the law.
Delurking, are you sure? The article I read about this said that Maryland explicitly says you can leave kids alone at age eight, and since she assumed the same the Delaware authorities understood her actions.
” the Delaware Department of Justice determined it could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed a crime.”
How Orwellian is that? Either a crime was committed or it wasn’t. They didn’t need to arrest her to figure that out.
Remember that prosecutors, as a group, don’t care about innocence or guilt. They care whether or not the charges can be proven. In this case, while the Deleware DoJ’s statement seems Orwellian, it’s really an insight into the truth of how prosecutors think. It applies any time someone faces charges.
Remember also that juries don’t get to say “innocent.” They say “guilty” or “not guilty.” The same thinking applies. Do the actions rise to the level of criminality? Yes = guilty. No = not guilty.
The article reveals that the man who reported her thought the kids were “around 5 or 6 years old” . Not 8 and 9, as they actually were. ONCE AGAIN, we have a stranger misjudging the ages of kids and assuming they are being negligently left alone.
This happens often with children who are smaller than average, or young-looking. It’s not always easy to tell the age of other people’s kids. Can these “well-meaning” strangers please stop going straight for the authorities?
Three cheers for David DeLugas. I strongly suspect that “The Delaware Department of Justice determined it could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed a crime” is closely related to the mom having representation. We are going to need a lot more lawyers specializing in this area of law for kids and families to get their freedom back.
Also I think we may be seeing dividends of the public debate over the Meitiv children. For one, it his been driven home that Maryland’s legislature considered 8 old enough to be home alone. More importantly, it was also driven home that younger ages were, and in Maryland legally still are, acceptable for kids to be out in public with parents available near by. I.e. that 8 is the higher level of being responsible for one’s self, not the minimum. While 8 is a bit older than I personally think necessary for short trips, the existence of such a law provides an anchor for a ‘reasonable person’ defense of how she might interpret Delaware’s law requiring “appropriate supervision”. Even if not a single juror personally believed 8 was old enough. It would be awfully hard to argue that her agreement with her state legislature put her outside the bounds of what a “reasonable person” might think.
” Even if not a single juror personally believed 8 was old enough. It would be awfully hard to argue that her agreement with her state legislature put her outside the bounds of what a “reasonable person” might think.”
Not that hard.
The legislature thought that 8-year-olds could be left home alone. These kids were alone, but not home, when police became involved. The fact that they didn’t follow mom’s instructions about what to do (and what not to do) suggests that the kids were not responsible enough to be left alone.
I’m elated for her that the charges have been dropped and I’m happy that reason finally prevailed BUT it certainly never should have gotten to that point. Goodness, kids that age in the Philippines and probably many other countries fend by themselves quite frequently and do just fine.
>>” Even if not a single juror personally believed 8 was old enough. It would be awfully hard to argue that her agreement with her state legislature put her outside the bounds of what a “reasonable person” might think.”
Not that hard.
The legislature thought that 8-year-olds could be left home alone. These kids were alone, but not home, when police became involved. The fact that they didn’t follow mom’s instructions about what to do (and what not to do) suggests that the kids were not responsible enough to be left alone.<<
No, it shows that the kids were being responsible pet owners, by taking care of the dogs' needs. They took the dogs outside for a bathroom break, and the dogs got away. That was an accident. Suppose they'd followed the "letter of the law," stayed inside, and one or both of the dogs had had an accident on the floor of the cottage/vacation rental, and caused enough damage so that the parents were fined? The parents would probably deem that to be proof that the kids were "not responsible enough to be left alone," so I see a lose-lose situation here.
Heck, I've had dogs get away from me as an adult–the incident that comes to mind was my first time visiting the community dog, Atlas, shortly after I'd moved into in the International House community in Australia. At the time, I didn't know that Atlas didn't like it when people visited him without walking him. I went into Atlas' enclosure to see him, and he RAN out as fast as he could, through a wooded area towards the highway. One of the iHouse heads saw the whole thing, because Atlas' enclosure was adjacent to the heads' house. Unfortunately, she happened to be giving her young son a bath at the time. So, she and her (naked and wet) son RAN out of the house as fast as they could, and a few of the student leaders ran over from the patio area outside the dining hall where they'd been eating dinner, and started chasing Atlas too, until one of them caught him. Atlas was a black Labrador retriever, and they can run really fast when they want to. Over time, I learned to deal with Atlas better, and I became one of his favourite people–I'd walk him on a regular basis, and often feed him when the iHouse heads went out of town (that was another rule; nobody was allowed to feed him without being asked to, because black Labrador retrievers can eat themselves to death).
But anyway, my point is, those fleeting moments when I saw Atlas running towards the highway, and not being able to run fast enough to catch him, were terrifying, and I was 25 at the time (mature student enrolled in a postgrad program). In the end, nobody was mad, because they could see how terrified I was, so police intervention would have been wildly unnecessary. So, I can only imagine how much scarier it must have been for those kids, because they had TWO escaped dogs, and then the police intervened. My point is, accidents happen, and I think the world would be a much better place if more people treated accidents as accidents, and not as criminal behaviour.
Quote: “The fact that they didn’t follow mom’s instructions about what to do (and what not to do) suggests that the kids were not responsible enough to be left alone.”
@James:
This is precisely what Lenore addressed when she wrote “we have to have room in the law for imperfect moments, imperfect kids and imperfect parents.”
Goodness, it’s not as if they were playing with firearms or set the house on fire.
I definitely think it’s insane to arrest the mother. There does seem to have been a bit of a breakdown either in communication or discipline, but the hysteria that leads to an arrest over this is frightening. It makes me want to move to either a private island before I have kids (saving my pennies all the time) or a far flung country with laws similar to what the U.S. was like in the 60s and 70s, if there is one. Norway strikes me as a place where children have a lot of freedom.
I wonder where they had the kids after she was arrested – I’ll go read the side story. Having your Mom taken to jail is much more harmful and traumatizing to kids than being left alone for a brief period.
From the National Association of Parents:
To clarify, the dog was unleashed and the stranger claims he almost hit the DOG. The children NEVER were in the street and were not in danger of being hit (and were not entering the street) – based on the POLICE REPORT. Lenore’s story, above, may have been worded in a manner that would incorrectly cause a reader to think the stranger almost hit (them) the children. Not so. And, considering this was mid-August, this was during daylight.
To be a crime in Delaware, the child must be in a situation where the child is “likely to suffer injury” and the key word is LIKELY. When we undertook Susan Terrillion’s representation, we confirmed that (a) K-5 children who live within a mile of their school are not provided bus service, but must walk, ride bikes or be driven and the elementary school very close to the rental unit has a bike rack outside (do the math, a child riding a bike or walking is apart from a parent for 30 minutes +/-), (b) the local businesses include bike rental places for tourists and arcades and both allow children to be without a parent or adult (if renting a bike, the parent does not have to rent one, too, and the only local ordinance is that the child must wear a helmet), and (c) there is NO statistic or information that supports the claim of police that a child (meaning any person under 18 years of age) in Rehoboth Beach without a parent or adult nearby is LIKELY to be injured.
When we requested such information from the Attorney General’s Office (prosecuting this case), the case was dismissed. We were perplexed and remain perplexed as to whether the City of Rehoboth Beach, by this arrest, is taking the position that a child without a parent nearby is LIKELY to be injured. Not exactly the view you’d expect from a resort town that relies upon tourism and people believing their children are safe to go for a walk, to play at the arcade, to ride a bike, and, yes, to walk the dog (preferably on a leash).
A big reason we got involved is because of our concern that parents, across the USA, reading about the arrest of Sue Terrillion, will not make decisions about their own children without considering whether she or he might get arrested, too. The “chilling” impact this case has on decisions parents should be able to make based on their judgment about their own children and the situation presented.
We have asked the City of Rehoboth Beach to meet with us and to issue a joint press release exonerating Susan and also to proclaim that a child in Rehoboth Beach without a parent nearby is NOT likely to be injured. So far, they are refusing to meet and discuss doing so. Makes one wonder if a child in Rehoboth Beach without a parent nearby IS likely to be injured. A Freedom of Information Request asking about the number of children injured in Rehoboth Beach was refused (claiming exemptions). Until the City reveals that children are NOT injured in Rehoboth Beach, perhaps parents ought to consider alternative vacation spots where there is reassurance that children are NOT LIKELY to be injured.
The Police Department issuing the SECOND press release in response to media inquiries about the arrest doubled-down and falsely claimed there was a complex set of facts and falsely insinuated that these children were at risk of bodily injury or death! Nothing like the City of Rehoboth Beach Police Department being more concerned about criticism and scrutiny it was receiving rather than accurately and truthfully addressing this case. BTW, to its credit, the Police Department did not take Susan off that early evening, but had her come in the next day when the rest of the vacationing family showed up. Either way, to apply for an arrest warrant based on Delaware law that requires a child be in a situation where the child is LIKELY to be injured reveals how law enforcement abuses its powers.
We hope to push back so that the fundamental right of parents, as declared by the US Supreme Court, to decide for their own children, so long as not causing harm (physical or long-term emotional), will not be so readily infringed by law enforcement, CPS and others when a child is NOT hurt, not in distress, and not in imminent danger from an identifiable source.
At least they’re admitting being the Morality Police:
“…wear the badge on their chest with pride as a symbol of justice with emphasis on moral and ethical decision making.”
I want to be supportive of law enforcement, but I’ve found them to be arrogant jerks so many times.
@James –
Or maybe the kids WERE behaving responsibly — perhaps the dog began whining at the door to be let out because nature called. Rather than causing the dog discomfort or risking an accident in the house they tried to be responsible and take it outside as they’ve done before.
Sometimes things happen.
When I was 13 I was babysitting for two kids down the street. I’d babysat these two kids on countless occasions. One evening, after dinner, I took the boys out back to play on the swingset as we had done before. This time, for some reason, the back door locked on us when I closed it. I had no key, no cell phone (this was the mid 80’s ) no number to reach the parents on (that was inside on the kitchen counter) and we ended up hanging out at the neighbor’s house for the next few hours. Luckily, I knew the neighbors so this wasn’t as scary as it sounds. I taped a note to the door so the parents would know where we were when they arrived home.
I was embarrassed beyond belief but luckily they understood and it didn’t prohibit me from babysitting for them again in the future (though I ALWAYS took a spare key with me and ALWAYS confirmed the door was not locked when taking the kids in the backyard). The dad did discover that the door lock mechanism was faulty which made me feel slightly better.
All of this is to say that even when people do responsible things and behave in appropriate ways things don’t always go as planned.
Glad they dropped charges but she should not have been arrested in the first place.
It seems like a lot of people no longer think 9 year olds can leave the confines of their homes without an adult present. It’s like we think they are 3 year olds.
The primary focus of the police is not the protection of life, it is the enforcement of our laws. They are not bodyguards. This is the problem with our law enforcement (and legal) system.
Laws (e.g. neglect) are being used as the basis for taking action against people under some arbitrary intent (e.g. saving kids lives) that they have made up to justify their actions (e.g. arresting a good mother) that go beyond law enforcement (e.g. their lives weren’t in danger any more than mine is when I go out, which, even at 37, it is, but that doesn’t warrant arresting my mother).
“it shows that the kids were being responsible pet owners, by taking care of the dogs’ needs. They took the dogs outside for a bathroom break, and the dogs got away. That was an accident.”
“This is precisely what Lenore addressed when she wrote “we have to have room in the law for imperfect moments, imperfect kids and imperfect parents.”
Goodness, it’s not as if they were playing with firearms or set the house on fire.”
“Or maybe the kids WERE behaving responsibly — perhaps the dog began whining at the door to be let out because nature called. Rather than causing the dog discomfort or risking an accident in the house they tried to be responsible and take it outside as they’ve done before.”
Right.
But I was providing the argument the prosecutor would use to show that even though the legislature allows 8-year-olds, generally, to be left at home “alone”, there is still a violation of the law here, since someone thought that would be a conclusive factor in deciding whether or not to charge… but it isn’t.
Y’all seem to have confused that for something else.
Separately,
“Norway strikes me as a place where children have a lot of freedom. ”
You might want to Google “Barnevarnet”.
James, Barnevernet, not Barnevarnet, btw. Children might have a lot of freedom in Norway, not so their parents, I am afraid. And that “someone might think that there was still a violation of law” etc. – this is exactly the problem. Who gave us, complete strangers, the right to decide?! I would also expect more common sense from those policemen…
“I would also expect more common sense from those policemen…”
The policemen were undoubtedly influenced by the one adult who was on the scene, who thought they were too young to be out chasing dogs by themselves.
“James, Barnevernet, not Barnevarnet, btw.”
Whether you spell it correctly or my way, Google still has meaningful results.
It seems that the Norwegian children’s protective service whose name begins with a “B” take an extremely dim view of parents who attempt to raise their children in a way the government (or perhaps just the agency?) finds not socially acceptable, and they seem to remove a LOT of children from families, particularly immigrant families.
I don’t agree with any of these “but they shouldn’t” bla bla bla.
First of all, if the mom was home the dogs could have run off and had the kids chase them. That is a normal everyday occurrance. It is not evidence of neglect or irresponsibility.
Secondly, half of what people say the kids did “wrong” was that they didn’t hide and lie good enough. They shouldn’t have to hide and lie, because there is nothing wrong with an 8-9yo being outdoors without a parent close at hand. I think it’s wrong that we feel compelled to teach our kids to hide the fact that they are doing developmentally appropriate things. In this case they let the dogs pee. It seems kinda sick to say they shouldn’t have let the dogs pee because some nut might call the cops.
Thirdly, if we waited until our kids could be trusted to follow their parents’ instructions 100%, vs. taking some initiative and making their own decisions based on the situation, then nobody is ever old enough to be independent of his parents. We all make decisions that don’t turn out as expected. We all make mistakes. The fact that a person allegedly made a mistake is not evidence that s/he can’t be left alone. It’s evidence that she’s just earned some valuable life experience.
It’s typical that the “concerned citizen” who call the cops grossly misjudged the kids’ ages.
“It’s typical that the “concerned citizen” who call the cops grossly misjudged the kids’ ages.”
Maybe. Or maybe the kids look, act, or otherwise give off an appearance of being younger than they actually are.
Missus H is correct. I was mistaken. I thought Maryland law was age 9, but it is age 8.
To the argument that maybe the kids look younger than they are – so what? The man spoke to the kids. He couldn’t ask them their ages?
I have heard this argument used multiple times, and most of those times, there was an opportunity to ask the child’s age. Or, even after knowing their age, the “concerned” person still pursued the matter. I don’t buy it.
“I strongly suspect that “The Delaware Department of Justice determined it could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed a crime” is closely related to the mom having representation.”
I’d like to highlight this remark by Havva, upthread, because it gets to the heart of one of the biases of these situations; namely, towards parents of privilege. Parents who have the time and resources to be full-time at-home caretakers, or who can drive their kids everywhere they go, are judged to be not only superior but the only acceptable standard. Those aren’t the parents CPS targets; instead, single parents, poor parents, minority parents–these are the folks who get the increased scrutiny. Havva’s speculation that a parent who lacked the resources to secure legal representation might well have been prosecuted is eminently plausible. The DE DoJ is less likely to pick a fight with a mom who can battle back. It’s disgusting.
“To the argument that maybe the kids look younger than they are — so what? The man spoke to the kids. He couldn’t ask them their ages?”
Sure, but why would he?
He also could have asked for their home address, or their mother’s social security number. He could have asked all sorts of things. Why would he care how old they were?
“Havva’s speculation that a parent who lacked the resources to secure legal representation might well have been prosecuted is eminently plausible.”
Everybody who gets prosecuted gets legal representation.
David DeLugas and National Association of Parents,
Thank you for this very important work that you do, and for pushing further on this case. Indeed such cases, if not properly addressed, have a chilling effect on other parents and the decisions they make.
Hoping that Susan’s remaining interactions with the “authorities” will come to an end shortly. Although this is far from guaranteed.
“Why would he care how old they were?”
Evidently he cared how old they were because he thought they were too young to be out alone. By definition, if you think someone is “too young” to do something, you are caring how old they are.
“By definition, if you think someone is “too young” to do something, you are caring how old they are.”
So, if the bouncer won’t let you in to the club because he doesn’t think you’re 21, he cares if you’re 19 or 20?