Mom Arrested For Letting Child Play Outside
September 15th, 2012
(CourtHouseNewsService) – Police falsely arrested a mother for “child endangerment” after a neighbor reported that she had abandoned her children by letting them ride scooters in the street, the mom claims in court.
Tammy Cooper sued her neighbor Shelley Fuller, the city of La Porte Police Department and one unidentified officer, in Federal Court.
La Porte is a city of 33,000 near the Houston Ship Channel in Harris County.
In her complaint, Cooper says she lives on a “quiet, suburban cul de sac” and “often allows her 6- and 9-year-old children to ride their scooters on the street while she watches from a chair in the driveway or through the large windows on the front of her house.”
“On the day of her arrest, Cooper’s children were playing on their scooters in the cul de sac when her neighbor, defendant Shelley Fuller, called the City of La Porte Police Department to report that Cooper had ‘abandoned’ her children,” the complaint states.
Cooper says she told the responding La Porte policeman that she had been home the whole time.
