[rufflez]

That’s part of the problem… everything can’t be reduced to if-then-else; situational awareness, perspective, nuance and understanding are completely missing. In this case, how helpful is it to the child to remove the mother from the child, to teach her a lesson not to remove herself from the child?

[ownlife]

My guess is that the mother was removed from the child not as a punishment to her, but in order to ensure the safety of the child. In other words, deterrence rather than retributive justice. FWIW, I do agree that this is a huge overreach on the part of the police and that "situational awareness, perspective, nuance and understanding are completely missing."

[worthless-trash]

More importantly, is making an 8 year old kid a km by themselves in rural America a significant risk ?

I feel like I would have done this 1000 times by the time i was 8 in the rural Australia, is the danger in the US that much larger ?