Dick Yarbrough

Syndicated columnist

It seems as though my mother was a criminal and I am just now finding out about it. All this time, I thought she was a conscientious parent who fixed my school lunch, washed and ironed my clothes, made sure I went to church and was active in the PTA. Little did I know.

When I was 10, we lived in College Park, south of Atlanta. Both my parents worked, which made me a latchkey child, although I had no idea what that meant at the time since we didn’t own a latchkey. We didn’t need one. We never locked our doors. No one did.

From Labor Day to Memorial Day, I could be found at S.R. Young Elementary learning long division, diagramming sentences and trying to find Uruguay on the map for reasons that escaped me. Come June, I was out of there. The next three months were mine.

I remember those summer days as mostly idyllic. Sleep late. Eat when I got ready. And in the afternoon, hop on my bike and pedal to downtown College Park and enjoy an ice cream treat at Gordy’s Drug Store. Afterwards, I would cruise up and down Main Street and finally home.

I haven’t been to College Park in a number of years, but I am guessing that from our house to the drug store was at least a mile and I probably added another mile or so touring the town. Where was my mother? At work, operating a switchboard (look it up) at an insurance company. I didn’t see the need to bother her for approval of my ice cream excursions.

Fortunately, that was a long time ago and was in College Park. Were it today and in Fannin County, Momma would be in a heap of trouble. Just ask Brittany Patterson. Her son, Soren, 10, unbeknownst to her, was walking toward the little town of Mineral Bluff, less than a mile from their house when he was spotted by a passerby who followed him, interrogated him and decided to call the police.

I have a great respect for law enforcement and rush to their defense whenever I hear yammers of police brutality and defunding the police. However, in this case, there is no way I will give the Fannin County Sheriff ’s Office a pass on their ham-handed dealing of the situation. Instead of what should have been a simple, “Please tell Soren to let you know the next time he wants to walk to the store,” two knuckleheaded deputies arrested Patterson and handcuffed her in front of her children. Nice. The arrest warrant calls her action a “gross deviation from the standard of care a reasonable person would exercise.” I call the Fannin County Sheriff ’s Office’s actions a gross deviation from the standard of common sense a law enforcement agency should exercise Is this all they have to occupy their time? Let’s buy them a radar gun.

According to a bodycam recording the action, Patterson told the two Barney Fife wannabes, “Last time I checked, it wasn’t illegal for a kid to walk to the store.”

“It is when they’re 10 years old,” responded a female deputy (I’m thinking maybe Aunt Bee here) before leading the handcuffed Mom off to the pokey.

Now, the Georgia Division of Family & Children Services is involved. (This gets more asinine by the minute.) Authorities told Patterson they’d let her go with a “safety plan,” which includes Soren having a GPS tracking app on his phone. She declined. “I did nothing wrong,” she said. “I’m going to fight for that.” Good for her.

The legal ball is now in local district attorney Frank Wood’s court to see if he actually chooses to prosecute her. If convicted, Brittany Patterson could face a fine up to $1,000, spend up to 12 months in jail, or both.

The incident has gotten Fannin County, home of the town of Blue Ridge and one of my favorite places to visit, national attention, none of it good and all of it deserved, thanks to the Fannin County Sheriff ’s Department and the nosy-Nellie who started all this.

As for me, when you get upset with my hyperbolic screeds, please cut me some slack. It’s not my fault. I am an emotional wreck. I have just discovered my sweet momma was actually a criminal for not authorizing and supervising my one-mile bicycle rides to Gordy’s Drug Store to eat ice cream. Where was the nanny state when I needed it?

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough. com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.