A Georgia woman has been arrested and charged with endangering her son, which authorities say all stemmed from her 10-year-old son walking more than a mile from her home without supervision. .
Brittany Patterson, 41, took her other son to the doctor on Oct. 30, but the Fannin County Sheriff’s Department called to say her son, Soren, had wandered from their rural home in Mineral Bluff. When I was told this, I felt a little irritated, but I wasn’t worried at all. And then to the city.
“It’s not a super dangerous road, it’s not a dangerous road at all,” Patterson said in an interview with NBC News that aired Wednesday. “I wasn’t afraid of him or worried about his safety.”
Deputies drove Soren, now 11, home, but Patterson thought that was it.
But several hours later, sheriff’s officials returned to the family’s home near the North Carolina border, where Patterson was handcuffed, arrested, charged with reckless conduct, and forced to post $500 bail.
“Of course I was angry and frustrated, because my children had to witness all of that,” she said. “They gave me instructions, like putting my hands behind my back, and I realized what was going on.”
She and her attorney said authorities have offered to drop the charges if Patterson signs a document outlining a safety plan that will ensure her children are supervised at all times.
Patterson refused to sign the document and said he intended to contest the charge, which carries a one-year prison term.
“This is not right. I did nothing wrong,” she said. “I’m going to fight for it.”
Patterson’s attorney, David DeLugas, asked rhetorically whether mothers and fathers now have to know the exact location of their children at all times.
“Should every parent have to put a GPS on their child?” he said. “Parents make decisions for their children unless it’s unreasonably dangerous.”
A representative for the Fannin County district attorney could not be reached for comment Thursday.
