A Georgia woman was arrested and accused of allegedly endangering her son — all because the unsupervised 10-year-old walked less than a mile away from home, officials said.
Brittany Patterson, 41, had taken another son to a doctor on Oct. 30, and she became mildly annoyed — but not at all worried — when the Fannin County Sheriff's Department called to say her son Soren had wandered from their rural home in Mineral Bluff and into town.
"It's not a super dangerous or even dangerous-at-all stretch of road," Patterson told NBC News in an interview that aired Wednesday. "I wasn't terrified for him or scared for his safety."
Deputies drove Soren, now 11, home and that was that, or so Patterson thought.
But then hours later, the sheriff's department went back to the family's home near the North Carolina border, where Patterson was handcuffed, arrested, booked on suspicion of reckless conduct and forced to post $500 bail.
"It was anger and frustration, of course, because my children were having to witness that all," she said. "They asked me to put my hands behind my back and all that stuff, and I realized what was going on."
Authorities have offered to drop the charge if Patterson signs a form that outlines a safety plan guaranteeing that her children would always be under a watchful eye, she and her lawyer said.
Patterson refuses to sign the form and said she'll contest the charge, which carries up a year behind bars.
"This is not right. I did nothing wrong," she said. "I'm going to fight for that."
Patterson's lawyer, David DeLugas, rhetorically asked whether mothers and fathers now have to know the precise locations of their children at all times.
"Are all parents going to have to put GPS on their child?" he said. "The parents get to decide for their children unless it is unreasonably dangerous."
A representative for the district attorney in Fannin County could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
