A Georgia mother was arrested last month after her 11-year-old walked about a mile from their home to a town while she was at an appointment for her other child. Brittany Patterson, a 41-year-old mother of four, was handcuffed by a Fannin County sheriff’s deputy in front of her children on the night of Oct. 30, just hours after her son Soren was seen walking into the town of Mineral Bluff in northern Georgia. Patterson didn’t know where he was at the time, which she told the sheriff’s deputy who stopped the boy after someone called to report the child walking alone.
But Patterson told HuffPost in an interview that she wasn’t concerned for his safety and that she believes her free-range parenting style — encouraging her kids to develop independence — was met with government overreach. “What it means for us is that our kids can go play outside,” she said. “Our kids can walk into town without being stalked and harassed by people. And if you don’t want to let your kid do that, then that’s OK, too. That’s your choice, but there shouldn’t be any punishment, to parents or to the children, if they’re not doing anything wrong.”
She was booked on a misdemeanor count of reckless conduct and later said she was presented with a safety plan by the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, which she refused to sign. She’s now working with Parents USA, a group that has provided legal services on issues it terms “parents’ rights,” such as custody disputes, whether schools must notify parents of a child’s gender issues and cases of children walking alone. The Fannin County Sheriff’s Office did not comment to HuffPost, but in an incident report, a deputy wrote that her primary interest was the safety of the child.
Patterson knew her son was missing for an hour and did not report it, the deputy said. Patterson said that the Wednesday afternoon when her son walked into town was just like any other day. Soren is homeschooled, she said, and she’d given him a choice to stay home, on their 16-acre property, or go with her to take his older brother to the chiropractor. Before Patterson left the house, she said, she called out Soren’s name, but no one answered. She said she thought he’d decided to stay home, adding that her father was also at his home on the property at the time.
Her attorney David S. DeLugas argued that Georgia state guidelines say children ages 9 to 12 may be left alone for a maximum of two hours. According to the report written by the Fannin County deputy, a woman saw the boy walking down the road and into a Dollar General store. She told deputies she saw him walking to the gas station and a post office before she stopped him to ask if he was OK. He said he was, and she asked more questions, such as where his parents were and what his mother’s name was, according to the incident report. She once again asked the boy if he was OK, and he responded by saying “Never mind” and running behind a fire station.
She then called the sheriff’s office, and a deputy came out and spotted the child walking alone, a little over a mile from his home, according to the report. The deputy said the boy “seemed to be confused as to what was going on,” and she offered him a ride. DeLugas told HuffPost that the 11-year-old was confused because he had done nothing wrong, yet a deputy with a badge, uniform and gun was asking him questions. The boy initially declined the deputy’s offer of a ride and said he wanted to walk, then told her where his home was and that his grandfather was there, according to the incident report.
Body-camera footage obtained by HuffPost shows the boy inside the police cruiser, visibly upset and answering more of the deputy’s questions. Eventually, the deputy called Patterson and told her that her son was found walking alone, but the incident report noted that she “seemed very unsurprised or concerned with this information.” “I wasn’t panicking,” Patterson told HuffPost. “I wasn’t hysterical that he had decided to walk into town without asking me, because he knows the way there, he knows how to get there, he knows how to get back, we all do. So it’s not like I was concerned that he was going to be lost or missing, or anything like that.
In the bodycam footage, Patterson can be heard telling the deputy that she assumed Soren had walked out to the woods behind their home. The mother told the deputy Soren did this often when he was upset, but he had never walked all the way to Mineral Bluff. The mother described Soren as “defiant” to the deputy over the phone call, and when told authorities were concerned that he would be hit by a car, she responded, “I don’t know what to do with him,” and “I’m at my wit’s end.”
Soren was taken back home by the deputy, where they were met by his grandfather, who told the deputy he would stay with him until his mother could return from the appointment. Bodycam footage shows the deputies walking through parts of the home following their interaction with the grandfather. That same night, deputies arrived at Patterson’s door to arrest her. She said she was on the phone with a business client and was not immediately aware that she was being put under arrest. Bodycam footage shows Patterson keeping her composure while telling Soren to call his grandmother to look after the rest of the kids.
Patterson told HuffPost she was placed in handcuffs outside her home, in front of Soren. According to the deputy’s report, Patterson’s mother told deputies that Soren was “out of control” and there had been discussions about sending him to live with his dad, who was working in Montana. “She said he is sad and will not eat,” the deputy wrote in the incident report. Patterson said she doesn’t doubt that her mother “probably said those things” and that “she often just says things she doesn’t mean when she’s upset.” Patterson described her son Soren as an independent child who loves the outdoors, and she questioned why authorities were painting him as having “some kind of issues.”
“I mean, he is a boy, and so he does do boy things, but for the most part, I’d say he’s probably pretty close to an average [11]-year-old boy that has grown up in the woods in a rural area,” Patterson said. DeLugas, her lawyer, maintained that Patterson did not do anything that amounted to a criminal offense. She was taken to jail, where she was forced to change clothes, was fingerprinted and had her mug shot taken. She was there for about an hour and a half before being released on bail. She said she felt shock and disbelief. An agent from the Division of Family and Children Services showed up the next day and interviewed the children, she said.
Patterson said she was asked to sign a safety plan, which would have her download a tracking app on Soren’s phone and delegate a “safety person” who would look after her child when she was not home. Patterson decided not to sign it. She told HuffPost it’s unclear what consequences she could face. “I felt like it was more of a risk at that point for me to sign something like that, without any kind of guarantee, than it was for me to just refuse to sign and stand up for what I believe in,” she said. In a recorded conversation between DeLugas and an Appalachian Circuit assistant district attorney shared with HuffPost, the prosecutor said that if Patterson were to sign the safety plan, she would not face criminal charges.
The assistant district attorney did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. Patterson’s case has been left unsettled. DeLugas told HuffPost he is currently working on a bill to present to the Georgia legislature that would bar law enforcement from intervening if they see a child who is not hurt, in distress or in imminent danger. He criticized authorities’ treatment of parents like Patterson. “Can we get that kind of attention to real crimes?” DeLugas asked. “I mean, where people are assaulted, bad things happen, drugged, whatever. Are you with me? Yeah, resources are being misplaced, and that’s part of the questioning of what’s going on.”
