A boy in north Georgia went for a walk down the road. It landed his mother in jail

In rural Georgia, a 10-year-old boy left home and walked a mile down the road to another town, where a concerned citizen called law enforcement. Deputies then arrested the boy’s mother, igniting a debate about parental rights and potential government overreach.

It was near the end of an unusual day for the four Patterson children when the deputies came to arrest their mother. The sheriff’s deputies approached the house, a tidy split-level outside Blue Ridge, Georgia, with chickens roaming the front yard and yellow flowers blooming along the front steps. What happened next was captured on a body-worn camera. Deputy Kaylee Robertson knocked on the glass. She wore an army-green vest over her short-sleeved uniform shirt. Visible on her left arm was the tattoo of a cartoon character: Blossom, leader of the Powerpuff Girls, who use their superpowers to fight crime. The door creaked open. “Hey Brittany,” the deputy said, making a come-here motion with her left hand, “I need you to come out here.” Still on the phone, Brittany Patterson apparently asked for more time. “No,” the deputy said with authority. “Not ‘one second.’ I need you to come out here.”