That woman has no certification or authority to decide whether a child is in danger, and the fact that the kid was a block away from home is not some undeniable indicator that he wasn't.

That woman has a civic responsibility to call authorities when she's worried about the welfare of a child. The authorities have a responsibility to be competent. The woman fulfilled her responsibility, the entire justice system failed. If the police and justice system aren't expected to have or use any expertise beyond some random concerned chick, they're not only failures, but useless. Lone individuals shouldn't be held to a higher standard than these people that we vest with the authority to make these decisions.

If anything, it would be nice if the police would have explained to her, when she called, the minimum standards for intervention when suspecting that a child is in danger. The reason they can't is because they don't have any.

Instead, it's somehow super-important to focus on and villainize this random concerned busybody. It's not important, and that woman could have been a hero for reporting on any other day (or with a legitimate justice system.)

That woman is dumb. Authorities are indeed incompetent to pursue this further, but those two are unrelated. If either of those were not true, dumb thing would not have happened — as humans, we are all in this together, and it's all of our responsibility to do better. That neighbour included.

If she was worried about a child, she should have accompanied them home.

Next time, she'll send police over when a kid can't watch more TV (or go to a party, or eat more sweets, or...) and ends up crying her guts out: hey, she's worried about children's welfare. I would be having police at my door almost every other day with a neighbour like that.

The woman is an authority. It takes a village. Instead of calling the police, the guys with guns whose job is to detain and sometimes kill people, she should have asked the child what's up.

The police are the guard dogs who arrest criminals.

I‘ve had to call the police, several times, to help with a mentally ill family member having a psychotic episode.

The police were very, very helpful and professional, especially the younger ones.

I think there’s a generational change in policing. Younger police (who grew up in a period of low crime) see themselves as social workers.

Older police see themselves as soldiers.

Its also probably because many of the younger police actually were soldiers, and understand that policing is a service you offer to your own soldiers, not a way of attacking the enemy.

> The authorities have a responsibility to be competent.

Not in clown world USA. The USSC said there is no government responsibility when USSC created the doctrine of government immunity.

What? No. People have a civic responsibility to protect exercise good judgment and common sense. If the people are broken the justice system, or any system, can’t fix it.