Reply #7: Kids are terrified when their adult relatives are arrested. [View All]

I know that I was concerned when they arrested the oldest son of my next door neighbors when I was a kid. They also had a daughter my age--and she was terrified, crying and screaming as they hauled him away in handcuffs.

He shot another guy in his front yard, some drug deal gone bad, with a bit of alcohol involved. The gun shot woke me up, it must have been 1 am. He staggered back inside to sleep it off, at least until the police and ambulance showed up. I watched out of my bedroom window. But his younger sister was terrified and traumatized when they took him away--she woke up from the gun shot, but didn't see what had happened and went back to sleep, as I did, until the authorities appeared. Then I watched the EMS folk load the wounded guy into the ambulance and the police haul the oldest son away, with the girl screaming and crying.

The FDLS kids were also kicking and screaming when they were taken away from their parents.

In both cases, one could argue that it was horribly wrong to take away the people they did. The kids are traumatized. They're in shock. They're horrified. So, by all means, let's not take away the people. Even kids whose fathers abandon them when they're only a couple of years old often love the image of their father they construct for themselves.

That *is* the logic used here, right? "Don't do it, for the kids' sake"?

Now, I'm not unsympathetic to the kids. They're not at fault. But they're also not an excuse for not holding the adults responsible. And it doesn't matter if the adults involved don't know they're responsible.