Because the government knows best when it comes to raising your children…or something like that.

A Maine mother faces child endangerment charges for allowing her daughter to play at the park across the street from her house without her constant supervision.

Nicole Jensen told WMTW she often allows her three children to play at the park a few hundred feet from her house and parents in the neighborhood make a coordinated effort to watch each other’s children. She watches from her front porch.

But when Jensen’s 7-year-old daughter was playing in the park by herself last week, someone at the park called 911 to report she was unattended and police intervened.

But instead of simply walking the child home, police tried unsuccessfully to call Jensen, then hauled the girl to the police station when the mother didn’t immediately answer her phone, according to the Personal Liberty blog.

Jensen said she requires her children to check in every hour when they’re playing outside, but police chastised the mother for not keeping closer tabs and insinuated the girl was in danger at the park.

“They said, ‘Do you know where your daughter is?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ and they said, ‘Well no you don’t. She’s at the police station,” Jensen recalled. “(The officer) said she was at the park unsupervised, no one know where she was, and if I hadn’t gotten a hold of you, I would have taken her into (the Department of Health and Human Services).”

Westbrook Police Chief Janie Roberts told the news site she estimated the girl was at the park for about an hour before she was detained.

“That’s a long time for a 7-year-old to be by herself in any location, let alone a public park,” Roberts said.

Police eventually charged Jensen with child endangerment.

“They brought her to the police station when her house is right there,” Jensen said, according to Personal Liberty.

“She did nothing wrong,” she said. “She’s followed all of my rules.”

Jensen told WMTW her daughter was “terrified” by the ordeal, and she plans to fight the child endangerment charge. She’ll also have to deal with DHHS, as police referred her case to that department, as well.

Via: EAG News