Parents are charged after their son, 7, is struck dead in a car accident
www.nbcnews.com
Gastonia, N.C., police charged the parents with involuntary manslaughter charges after allowing the victim and his brother to walk home alone from a nearby grocery store.

The grieving parents of a 7-year-old child who died hours after being hit by a car were charged with involuntary manslaughter after allowing him and his brother, 10, to walk home unaccompanied by an adult from a nearby grocery store.

The 76-year-old driver will not face any charges.

The Food Lion store is two blocks away from their home. The parents said the children were with their mother when they asked to meet their father at the store, and she allowed them to leave

Gastonia police declined to comment to NBC News, but said in a statement that “there is no evidence of speeding or wrongdoing on the part of the driver, therefore no charges have been filed. The driver continues to be cooperative and the incident remains under active investigation by the Gastonia Police Department’s Traffic Division.”

Ivey, the mother, told WSOC before her arrest that it was the first time had she let the children walk alone. “It was just devastating, I’m still in shock, I’m in shock,” she said. “It’s hard, I haven’t stopped crying; my husband hasn’t stopped crying. Honestly, I want justice for my baby.”

    • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netMEnglish
      34·
      4 days ago

      yells-at-cloud Back in my day, I would walk to school by myself when I was in elementary school. By middle school, I was walking two blocks to hang out at a friend’s house every weekend. I would walk to the corner store at the end of the street to buy snacks if I had the money. I would ride my bike a handful of miles from home to go to the arcade at the mall nearby. In the 80s they made movies about kids walking along train tracks to find a dead body!

      I mean, the obvious motivation here is racism, as other commenters have pointed out.

      • MizuTama [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        20·
        4 days ago

        I mean, the obvious motivation here is racism, as other commenters have pointed out.

        Oh definitely but I do think there is a separate ideological move at play as I believe I have seen similar things used to disparage white folk as well. I have interacted with a lot of people who genuinely believe not monitoring your kids for most of the day is reckless behavior and some people even have reported the cops have been called on them for letting their kids play on their own lawn unmonitored. (Which if that is a crime my family needs to be sent to the prison camps).

        Heck, I grew up in the 2000s and was not allowed to go more than 2-3 houses away excluding the occasional B-line to a specific friend’s house who lived just outside that radius until I was about 10 or so. I had assumed it was a one-off thing at the time and my family quickly relented randomly after I hit double digits (I swear some people just place arbitrary markers for what is allowed) but saw it apply to more and more kids as I was a teen and several members of the cohort just behind me had similar if not stricter rules than I did.

        I don’t think it is just racism as play, there is a very push towards the idea being outside is extremely unsafe which has been happening for quite some time.

      • D61 [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        8·
        3 days ago

        Everybody is expected to be a “cop” and police everybody else’s behavior at all times.