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ewly released bodycam footage shows police arresting a North Georgia mom, Alexandra Woodward, and her boyfriend after her 8- and 10-year-old children were found home alone while the couple drove more than an hour away
Raising legal and moral questions about parenting and the law. Police say they found a vape pen and Twisted Tea within reach of the children, and though Georgia law sets age limits on when children can be left alone, a new law expanding parental discretion doesn’t take effect until July.
This is a story that is going to have you talking , we have the new released body cam video if a situatuib that is getting a lot of attention and it’s stirring up a lot of debate about parenting.
This mom and her boyfriend could go to prison for allegedly leaving her two children home unattended at night as they drove more than an hour away.
We’ll show you what police say they found in the home that gave them concern , but there’s perhaps more to the story.
The kids left behind, they were 8 and 10 years old. so, are they old enough for this not to be a problem? some think so .
We’ll take a look at what the law has to say,there’s a story that we’re following out of North Georgia that creating a lot of debate.
Let us set the scene for you , Alexandra Woodward is a divorced mom and on tee night of April 15th , police were called to a house in Calhoun ,Georgia.
I’ts an hour and a half north of Atlanta.
I’ts around 11: 00 p. m . inside that home police found two boys,ages 10 and 8.
Their parents are nowhere to be found.
The two boys are home aloen , one of them reportedly called their biological father who’s Woodward’s ex-husband, who then called police.
He said an 8 and 10 year old should not be left alone at home .
The officer then steps outside and it does appear from the body cam video that he goes on a search enginge and then to a website to see what the laww says about whether this could be a crime .
He then goes inside the house and ask the boys to call their mom and they say that she drove an hour south toward Atlanta to take care of something at the storage unite.
Now , it seems police are even somewhatt unsure of what to do in theis situation.
According to the Departement of Children and Family Services in Georgia, kids under 8 years old should not be left alone.
For kids between 9 and 12 ,it’s less than 2 hours, and kids need to be 13 or older to be a babysitter.
And children older than 15 can be left alone overnight.
In this situation , you have a 10 year old there with an 8 year old.
You can see police then go through the house and they’re taking pictures what they see as evidence.
Police say they found a can of spiked iced tea , a twisted tea on the coffe table, and a vape pen in the reach of kids.
Now, at this point , you can see several officers are now on scene ,and about after the officers first arrived at the house,the mom’s on the phone again with police ,this is where things start to get testy.
Then about 20 minutes after that phone call…
the ex- husband,the boy’s father who called police showed up.
Police redacted that part of the conversation with the dad explaining why he called the police , now,here is where the conversation picks up again as an officers is also on the phone once again with Woodward who’s the mom.
Now it’s about midnight and the mom Alexandra Woodward and her boyfriend John McHugh make it back to the house.
Here’s the body cam video specifically of the mom being arrested.
Here’s Woodward’s mug shot, per the Gordon News, Woodward and her husband were put under arrest on a charge of cruelty to children and that carries a maximum of 5 years in prison.
Police also released body cam video of Woodward and McHugh in the backseat of a cruiser being taken to jail.
There has been push back on Woodward’s arrest , Reason magazine published a story that tries to give her side of the story .
It read” Before Woodward and McHugh left to go to that storage unite more than an hour away ,Woodward made her boys dinner and then they played a board game, she was getting foot surgery , the next week , she wanted to get some stuff done at this storage unit before she couldn’t walk.
The boys did their homework and then they went to bed,before the boys went to sleep , she told them that she was going to run an errand to the storage unit an hour away .
The article says;
“We found pictures on a fundraising site showing Woodward’s kids sewing and punping gas to make the argument that they are old enough to stay home alone”
The article also talks about a new law in Georgia that gives parents the right to decide when their children are old enough to stay home alone unless the kids are put in serious and imminent risk .
The problem for Woodward and McHugh, the article says , may be that this law doesn’t go into effect until July 1st of this year .
The article also says that Woodward right now is only allowed to talk to her kids on the phone and is required to undergo drug ,alcohol,parent and doemstic violence assessments .
And the article says that McHugh could lose his job because he’s an airport worker and he’s facing a felony charge.
Woodward’s attorney says that her charge has now been reduced to two counts of reckless conduct and that still could put her in jail for up to a year and could give her a fine of up to $ 1,000.
Woodward is receiving legal help from a group that’s called Parents USA , which says it is a parents rights group .
So family law is emtion more than practical common sense,right? and it seems like in this cae what happened is children were left alone .
Maybe a poor decision, but the problem is , it seperated parents and the other parent could have doen a lot of things,right?
He could call his laywer, he could call the kids and stay on the phone with them, he could go see the kids , he could have a friend check on them.
But to call a uniform policeman to go over and see them , just seems extreme.
It seems to make sense now that apparently there’s a modification of custody case pending ,just you know , a whole bunch of thoughts go through our minds.
And there’s so many bigger problems in the world, we’ve not saying this was right with the mom did ,but there are ways to address it.
And there’s a way to teach better behavior and it’s not throwing her in the back of a squad car and crushing her like a criminal that’s committed an armed felony.
Because there are these guidelines from the Georgia DFCS services that kind of gives this age rundown of when children should be left alone at home.
Never do it , you know, eight and under , and then you kind of get into this, you know between eight and 12 area where it should only be for a couple of hours and then this line is in there that we thought was interesting saying like based off maturity , which seems like a very,kind of a thing a parent would be able to gauge ,but the law really wouldn’t.
Though there have been these guidlines that can be applied to this case in some ways, what does the law say about how old a kid is? needs to be to be left alone at home ,especially when it’s a 10 year old looking after a 8 year old?
It sort of reminds us of the famous statement by Justice Potter Stewart from the Supreme Court who said, ,” we can’t really define pornography, but we know it when we wee it”.
There’s no definition of it , and apparently , these children seem to be okay, they reacted fine, their cameras in the home.
It’s very hard to have laws that are vague like this.
Police officers like laws that are black and white , you were going 60 in a 55, that’s a crime .
And by the way, if you ever get pulled over for doing 60 and a 55,you’re either getting a warning or traffic tickeet.
And a lot of people could argue that going 60 in a 55 or going 70 in a 55 is lot more potentially deadly then what this mom did.
But this law is vague, and we don’t know that theres’a one -sizefits – all, we think there has to be some discretion.
We don’t know that the police use their discretion well in this case ,But you can’t say a child of 14 can’t be left alone and a child of 15 can .
When s that automatic line? when does a child become mature?
Every family is different, and in this case, mom made a judgement call and we imagining if it goes all the way to trial .
She’s going to get some dfference if she has otherwise been a good and responsible mother.
We look at this and we think there’s part of this story that’s certainly the law, which is what we’re focusing on , like what we’re watching on this body cam is this actaully a crime?
And then there’s the other part of it” we’re both in Georgia and that’s about an hour and halft , probably from where she is in Calhoun.
And we think if you know an eight and a 10 year old , what if one kid gets sick ? he throws up and the dad appently wasn’t close by.-it took him about 20/ 30 minutes to be able to get to the house .
And there’s all these things that could have happened and the danger of what could have happened in the house….
Why would that not be a crime?
Considering that there are things that,you know , a ten and eight year old cold do ? what if he pulled on some furniture and the furniture comes crashing down on him?
Um… why doe the law not apply to the threat of what could happen?
The issue is with the way you’re framing the question .
We don’t think it’s that what she did was good and we don’t think that she should not be punished for it, but the queston is.
How do we correct the behavior?
This is not someone who killed somebody that should be locked away and away from society, this is a mother who made a bad decision.
First thin is protecting the children,right? Let’s find away , and that was our first answer ,send somebody over there, you know , go over there yourself.
Stay on the phone with the children, but putting the mom in jail right away and sending her to jail ,is that going to fix the behavior?
We don’t saying the law shouldn’t apply to her and what she did was right.
But there are other types f crimes, there are crimes where you get a citation to show up in court and defend yourself.
What happens again when you’re speeding? they don’t haul you off to jail and lock tou away ,they give you a ticket .
They say you’ve committed a crime or violation and you wil lshow up in court and defend yourself and either you will be punished for having committed a crime or you will be found not guilty and not have to pay a fine.
It’s how the crime or the violation is enforced and handled.
The essence of your question was- can we just say this is okay ? and don’t do anything about it? no.
Something has to be done about it , we have to say that at a certain age children should not be left alone and we’re not going allow that.
But what’s the fix?
We don’t think the fix in this case was going to jail and the trauma it caused to the children with police officers.
it’s something we probably need to work on better
That’s what parents USA is working on, that’s the organization that’s hired the lawyer who’s helping the mom is trying to do .
On the body cam video is police argue that or say in making the arrest that there was alcohol in the house and there was a vape pen , and from the body cam video , it seems like it was an open of twisted tea that was on a coffe table and then there’s a vape pen in the house that might have been…
They were taking a picture of , like where you put your keys, so it wasn’t like a vape pen was in for example like the kid’s bedroom or something like that.
What does the law say? like when can you apply that ?
Well, there were open containers of alcohol in the house in reach of kids.
You know if you have acohol in your home and the kids and they can walk around the house like technically- we would look at that and say that alcohol could be in the reach of a kid at all times. if parents aren’t not home and you have alcohol in the house.
Even if a parents is home and upstairs asleep , so , the word discrection comes into into play a lot in the law ,the officers have to use their discretion but also we have to look at the source .
And we don’t, they don’t know what they were told what the report was but it was from the father of the children, someone who was obviously not getting along with the mother.
They’re fighting about custody now so what did that person the reporting person tell the police officers was going on , did they say “children are exposed to this kind ofdanger and that kind of danger and i’m really worried about them, did they just say,” oh , mom’s gone , i just want to do a check and just make sure they ‘re doing okay?”
Because they’re acting in a emerency type situation , the first thing to do is to protect the children, and we don’t know what’s in their heads, and we’re going to find out what the report was , what the call was what the 911 tape says and then we’ll see , and they probably did act appropriately given the information they had at the time.
Protect the children ,yes.
Arrest the mom right there and then , or give her a court date, that’s ta question that we should figure out little better through our legislature.
You have a dad who told the police that his son had told him they were scared when they called him and he said he would never leave the kids at home.
But then there’s this aspect of we don’t know what’s been going on in their personal life to get them to this point .
How does the fact that this was an – exhusband, calling the police on a mom factor into how police handle this situation?
We don’t think the police had a lot of time to really get deep into the psychology of it , they had to act based on the information they had, but down the road, it is going to play out in divorce court when they’re in court and the father says;
She left the children alone”
And the mother’s going to say ” you exposed the children to police and had them come.”
It’s a combination of facts, we don’t know what’s better for te children or what’s worse for the children,being left alone or having their mother arrested and armed uniform police come to their house at night and talk to them.
So, there are a lot of factors that go into this and family law is messy .
If there’s a custody case ,this shouldn’t be or couldn’t be the only fact, if this is the only bad decision mom has made, ten she’s probably okay.
If this is a pattern and she’s done this a lot and done other things, then she has a real risk of losing custody of her children or having some sanctions or restrictions or supervision imposed.
But again, on its face, we think dad could have proved that mom left the children alone without getting her arrested.
Again, family law is messy and it’s a lot deeper than just , you know, crimes is did you have intent to commit the crime? did you commit the crime?
What’s the punishment? that’s all the states is interested in .
That’s all law enforcement is interested in .
But now , we’ve got a deeper issue of what’s long -term best for the children?
And again, we don’t know anything about dad,he might be a wonderful guy and maybe the children would be better served living with him.
Mabey he’s not a wonderful guy, what are mom’s other attributes and skills? her home life and her schedule?
there’s a lot more that goes into a custody case than goes into this.
Did she commit the crime of reckless endangerment or reckless conduct and leaving the children alone in a dangerous situation?
Those are the facts of that case , we don’t know that rises to that level and remember,in a criminal case, the state has to prove its case beyonda reasonable doubt.
In the family law case,it’s just tipping the scales.
Which is better for the children?
And so , there are two big cases going on here ,this poor mother ,she’s now also got to pay lawyers to defend her in the criminal case and find laywers to do family law case.
The family’s in a world of hurt now ,we wish there was a therapeutic way to resolve this, mediation is on the rise, it happens a lot in family law.
This case might be a good one for cooperative parenting therapy, some sort of alternative dispute resolution.
But what do we know? maybe they’ve been through all that and this is , where they stand ,they haven’t been able to do it themselves.
I’ts tough to kind of see it , see it play out like this because then it takes what was a frustrating and in some ways private dispute that they were having and then this happens and certainly the safety of the children.
You look at the charge that she was initially charges with as well as John McHugh who is the boyfriend,who was also arrested and it was for cruelty to children which they seem very shocked in the body cam video that’s what thechare would be.
That’s a charge where they could be sentenced to 5 years in prison.
What is the bar to reach that charge?
Why were they hit with that charge initially?
Well , they’re making a judgement call of the police on the scene at the time and again , we don’t know what other information the police officers had,what they were told by the reporting person, by the father of the children.
So, given all the facts they had , they probably charged that and we can’t imagine that’s going to be the final charge, we understand it’s going to be reduced or looks like it’s going to be reduced.
And we think the mother is probably going to end up walking with …maybe she’s got to take a class in how to be a better parent and that would be the result of the whole thing,or maybe she’s going to go to trial and try to prove the point that she was not guilty
Best thing is for this to go away and for them to focus on their family .
But you know , child cruelty , that’s like people putting ciggarettes out on their children’s chest or people, you know , feeding their children alcohol or not putting them in a seat belt and putting them in a car and driving drunk.
Cruelty to children is usually a much more serious crime than the set of effects that we’ve seen on the body cam , which is pretty much all w’ve seen.
John McHugh , who’s the boyfriend, he was also facing these charges,why would he as someone who’s not a biological parent be facing charges in this case as well as the mother?
Well ,that can happen, there are non- biological parents that abuse children that do bad things to children .
Again, did he even know the children were there? did he just pick her up?
did he try to stop her? did he try to stop her?
At first blush , it looks like he and her left two young children home alone for an extended period of time,maybe within the reach of alcohol and vaping devices, that’s enough to get over the threshold.
You don’t have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did it to arrest them ,right? all you need is a reasonable suspicion.
And they had that , they had enough there to make the arrest and then sort it out later and again , with children , it’s special.
First ting we do is protect the children, so let’s separate the possible offender from the possible victims , the children, and sort it out later.
And unfortunately , a lot of people gt caught up like this mother does where children are removed from a home because of false report or some sort of report and they’re reunited later.
There’s a lot of trauma in the interim , but as a society , first thing we do is protecting the children , if there’s any risk of harm to children ,we’ve made the decision as a sociaty to protect the children .
And then if there’s other harm because of a fals report , we deal with that later.
You have to make judgement calls sometimes, this is the one the law makes and the police officers made.
Children and maturity levels, it’s always subjective in a lot of ways .
My kids are far more mature than anybody else’s and then someone else could be like, those kids are not”
How do we then apply a law ?
It’s comes more to the training of the police officers because we don’t like laws that areas black and white, family law in Georgia , for instance, a 14 year old child can elect which parent they want to live with ,and it’s very hard to overturn that election .
Well, what you know , not all 14 years old are created equal, there’s some 12 year olds that know exactly what’s good for them
There’s some 18 year olds , and there’s some 60 years old that don’t even know what’s good for us this day.
It’s very hard to say at age such and such, you should be left alone , we can do presumptions, at age 10 , 11, 12, maybe those ages and below the presumption is its unsafe to leave them home alone.
But if officer believes that they’re in good shape and they’re okay, they don’t have to make an arrest.
You got to build in some discretion, but a lot of it comes along with the training and again, police are doing hard job and they’re only acting on the information they have, each case is going to be uniquely decided.
And this Judge is going to have to look at what was told to the police officers , did they act to court and they’re not going to be punished , the police officers either there’s going to be a conviction or not.
Police officeres arrest people that are innocent all the time, a lot would argue too often.
But what we do as a sociaty, again,when there’s a suspicion, a reasonable suspicions or probable cause, we arrest people,we investigate the facts ,and either we bring it to trial or we dismiss the case.
And we are still in the preliminary part of this case,the district attorney is going to look at this, and there’s going to be a resolution well short of trial that’s going to give mom a… we don’t want to say slap on the wrist because that sounds too incidental, this has scared her , we cannot imagine she’ll do it again , if she does a second offense, then she will have the book thrown at her.
But to the question…
If there was a perfect law that could be enacted to provent this, it would have been done by now, it’s a question oe people working together and figuring out what is the right language so the cop can google this in the law like he was apparently doing and say ” okay, i have the discretion as a police officer to decide in this case whether there was danger to children or not”
and then he makes a decision and it gets sorted out later,it’s the best we can do unfortunately.