Wed, 5 Mar 2008 04:00 CST - A charitable gesture turned into a nightmare for Treffly Coyne in December when she was arrested outside a Crestwood Wal-Mart and charged with child endangerment and obstruction of justice.

BY MICHAEL DRAKULICH SouthtownStar
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Mrs Coyne did nothing wrong. There isn't a single parent with 2 or more kids who hasn't done this. She didn't go in the store. She was thirty feet away for two mnutes.

And the Crestwood Police saw that as a reason to break up her family? To throw her in jail and take her child? Even worse to just leave her other three kids standing out in the cold after watching mom get hauled off to jail.

No doubt about it, the police were wrong here.

If we as Americans don't wake up and take control of this machine we have created... and it may even be too late... we are going to wake up in a world we wished we never saw.

A world where those sworn to serve and protect violate that oath with impunity.

What happened to Treffly Coynes family happened to every Americans family.

I object.

This is just another all too frequent case of a police officer with no common sense creating a huge problem for an entire family where none existed before. The baby was in no danger, unless you want to judge danger by an absolute standard such as a meteor crashing through the roof of the car. Life cannot be ridded of all danger, and common sense must be exercised. What the mom did was not unreasonable. Just think; if she had taken the baby out of the car with her, they could've been struck by lightning. Please everyone: Grow up, wise up and PROTEST unwarranted government intervention into our private lives.

I've actually left my daughters in the car for brief periods such as to grab a soda when at a gas station..

I think the police officer must have thought she was going in the store.. I'd be curious to have heard how that conversation went.

Eric