This from the Daily Herald:Charges will be dropped against a woman who briefly left her 2-year-old daughter alone in the car to take her two older daughters to pour coins into a Salvation Army kettle, prosecutors said today.
The woman, Treffly Coyne, was charged with misdemeanor child endangerment and obstructing a peace officer after a Crestwood police officer spotted her sleeping daughter alone in the vehicle Dec. 8. The mother claimed she was close by at all times and was gone for just minutes.
Coyne's trial was supposed to begin today, but prosecutors could not meet the burden of proof and decided to drop the charges, Cook County state's attorney spokesman John Gorman said.Her husband reacted with relief and anger. If convicted, his wife faced up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
"We shouldn't have had to fight this long and this hard when my wife never did anything wrong," said Timothy Janecyk. The planned dismissal of the charges "only shows they tore my family apart for no reason."
Coyne, who was arrested in a loading zone near the entrance of a Wal-Mart store, contended 2-year-old Phoebe, who was sleeping, was safe inside the car after she locked it, activated the alarm system and turned on the emergency flashers.
She said she was never more than 30 feet from the vehicle, did not step inside the store and was gone for only minutes. And her attorney said because the car was always in sight, Coyne's daughter never was unattended.
Crestwood Police Chief Timothy Sulikowski said he strongly disagreed with the prosecutors' decision.
"We stand by the actions of our officers that night and they were looking out for the best interests of the child," he said.
Sulikowski said that while police were obligated to report the case to the state's child welfare agency, Coyne would not have been arrested had she cooperated and not refused to give them basic information, including the child's name.
"By not providing us with that information and the information of her child, at that point we don't know that that child is hers. We don't know if that child has been listed as a kidnapped child or a missing child," he said. "Absolutely, she forced this."
Coyne has acknowledged she did not tell officers her child's name after she called her husband on her cell phone and he told her not to say anything until he arrived. She said she was afraid and only wanted to wait for her husband, but police arrested her before he did.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services also investigated the incident and determined there was no credible evidence of abuse or neglect.
Coyne's case garnered international media attention. Scores of bloggers also weighed in online message boards, some of them blasting the police for overstepping their authority and others taking her to task for leaving her child, however briefly.
Her husband said she had to endure allegations that she endangered her child's life and the stigma that she was an unfit mother.
He said his wife would not speak to the media until charges were officially dropped, but that the couple would become vocal advocates for other families.
"My wife is going to find people victimized in this way and she is going to use this spotlight," he said.
1 comment:
I found this article very interesting. I believe that Treffly Coyne should have taken her daughter out of the car, even if she was close by the whole time. That being said I also believe that she did have an eye on the car the whole time and was scared when the police were asking her questions. I think that the police were doing their duty to report the child, and when she didn't answer their questions, it seemed as if she had kidnapped the child. I am not bashing Coyne for what she did, but if her child had been kidnapped she would want the police to do their job and ask questions. When the questions weren't answered she would want the police to arrest that person. The police were doing their job keeping children safe. The lesson we learn from Coyne is to never leave your child in the car, even if you are only 30 feet away.
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