Brittany Patterson, the mom whose story went viral after she was arrested last fall when her son walked by himself into their small town in North Georgia, appeared on Tamron Hall’s talk show Monday.
Patterson’s “reckless conduct” arrest sparked outrage and spurred conversation about the government’s role in parenting after a woman spotted her son walking alone in Mineral Bluff and called the sheriff’s office. The boy, who was just days from turning 11, was less than one mile from home. Deputies returned him to the family home and arrested Patterson later that evening.
The “Tamron Hall Show” aired at 3 p.m. Monday on Channel 2 WSB-TV in Atlanta. Monday’s show featured several news stories “ripped from the headlines,” including an interview with Patterson.
“How far do we say is it OK for your kid to go from home, and at what age?” Patterson asked on the show, prompting applause from the studio audience. “Who decides that, and what gives them the authority to decide that?”
Mineral Bluff is a town of roughly 300 people where kids often walk to neighbors’ homes, play outside and are raised with a “herd mentality,” Patterson previously told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The arrest warrant alleged that she “willingly and knowingly did endanger the bodily safety of her juvenile son” because she left home not knowing where he was and did not report him missing to law enforcement — “a gross deviation from the standard of care a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation.”
Patterson has said repeatedly that she doesn’t believe she or her son did anything wrong, let alone anything criminal.
The TV show crowd audibly supported the mother and reacted with outrage after Hall shared details of a proposed safety plan the state’s Division of Family and Children Services had given Patterson to sign in order to drop the charges.
Patterson refused to do so, and her case remains in limbo as she waits to see how the district attorney will proceed, her attorney said Monday. If convicted, she could be sentenced to pay a fine of up to $1,000, spend up to 12 months in jail, or both.
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