Controversial child endangerment case stirs Internet debate
 Treffly Coyne, of Tinley Park, Ill., 36, is scheduled to stand trial on misdemeanor child endangerment and obstruction of justice charges. |
But that was long and far enough to land her in court after a police officer spotted her sleeping 2-year-old daughter alone in the vehicle; Coyne had taken her two older daughters to pour $8.29 in coins into a Salvation Army kettle.
Minutes later, she was under arrest — the focus of both a police investigation and a probe by the state’s child welfare agency. Now the case that has become an Internet flash point for people who either blast police for overstepping their authority or Coyne for putting a child in danger.The 36-year-old suburban mother is preparing to go on trial Thursday on misdemeanor charges of child endangerment and obstructing a peace officer. If convicted, she could be sentenced to a year in jail and fined $2,500, even though child welfare workers found no credible evidence of abuse or neglect.
On Dec. 8 Coyne decided to drive to Wal-Mart in the Chicago suburb of Crestwood so her children and a young friend could donate the coins they’d collected at her husband’s office.
Even as she buckled 2-year-old Phoebe into the car, the girl was asleep. When Coyne arrived at the store, she found a spot to park in a loading zone, right behind someone tying a Christmas tree onto a car.
“It’s sleeting out, it’s not pleasant, I don’t want to disturb her, wake her up,” Coyne said this week. “It was safer to leave her in the safety and warmth of an alarmed car than take her.”
So Coyne switched on the emergency flashers, locked the car, activated the alarm and walked the other children to the bell ringer.
She snapped a few pictures of the girls donating money and headed back to the car. But a community service officer blocked her way.
“She was on a tirade, she was yelling at me,” Coyne said. The officer, Coyne said, didn’t want to hear about how close Coyne was, how she never set foot inside the store and was just there to let the kids donate money, or how she could always see her car.
Coyne telephoned her husband, Tim Janecyk, who advised her not to say anything else to police until he arrived. So Coyne declined to talk further, refusing even to tell police her child’s name.
When Janecyk pulled up, his wife already was handcuffed, sitting in a patrol car.
He did, however, suggest Coyne put her child at risk.
“A minute or two, that’s when things can happen,” he said.
Online debate
Talk about the case has intensified, particularly online, where bloggers are weighing in on various message boards.
Many have harsh words for the police department, calling the arrest of a mother who left her child in a locked car for a few minutes an abuse of authority.
Yet statistics show thousands of children are injured and dozens die every year after being left unattended near or inside vehicles.
“I am talking tens of thousands of people who leave their kids in the car for any period of time all around America,” said Janette Fennell, founder and president of Kansas-based Kids and Cars. “People don’t appreciate the dangers of leaving a child alone in the car.”
Coyne’s attorney, Michelle Forbes, argued that Coyne did not break the law any more than a mother who parks in front of a school in a rainstorm and leaves an infant in the car as she runs a few feet to pick up another child.
“As long as the car is not out of her sight, then the child is not unattended,” she said.
Coyne and her husband believe she is unfairly being lumped in with parents who put their children’s lives at risk.
“If I were going on a shopping spree then, yes, I would deserve arrest,” Coyne said. “I was standing right there. I never went into the store.
“I’m a great parent.”
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2 comments:
Treffly Coyne is a fine mother who happened to be out on an excursion planned by her children to donate to charity. A lesson we would all do better to be taught by her kids. Unfortunately the government, very concerned about the welfare of her child stepped in. Somehow the officer saw that a sleeping two year old in a warm and safe locked car with the alarm activated would be better off without the mother who cares for her.
The police would not listen to her story, they refused to listen to witnesses, they did not investigate by going into the store to look at the security video.
Instead, they arrested Treffly Coyne, took custody of her two year old child, broke up her family, and most disturbing, the police abandoned three little girls at the Walmart… left them to their own luck, crying on the curb.
All because the government decided Treffly Coynes family needed its “protection.”
Her children were never in any danger until the representatives of the government showed up.
The police chief of Crestwood, Timothy Sulikowski, knew that there was no evidence that Ms. Coyne had done anything wrong, yet he still decided she needed to be charged and prosecuted.
TO COVER UP THE HORRIBLE MISTAKES AND MISCONDUCT OF THE CRESTWOOD POLICE.
For 97 days she was labled a child abuser by the state, investigated by the DCFS or CPS, paid expensive legal bills and suffered the public humiliation brought on by the unsubstantiated charges of the Crestwood Police.
Even when the prosecutor dropped the charges for lack of evidence, the police chief and Mayor Robert Stranczek continued to make public statements against Treffly Coyne.
Treffly Coyne is now suing the Village of Crestwood, police officers James Ciukaj, Forrest Wondolowski and Angel Brudnicki in federal court.
She would have preferred to have won in criminal court.
All she asked for was an apology and that the charges would be dropped. Thousands of dollars later, and hundreds of thousands of posts on the internet, the Crestwood Police cannot even give her that.
A terrible mistake was made that night at the Walmart and the Crestwood Police and Mayor Stranczek refuse to acknowlege it. Until they do, all citizens, all families in Crestwood are in danger of these kinds of police abuse.
Her fight is not over. The federal Judge will hear the case and has the power to direct the Crestwood Police to make changes in their policies and procedures.
Hopefully she will prevail in her fight, which is a fight for all of our civil rights and her case will create stronger boundaries between the family and the police.
It was wrong to arrest that mother and subject her children to witness in terror the actions of the police.
What is more wrong is that the woman has to fight such wrongdoing in federal court.
A victory for Treffly Coyne will be a victory for all American Families. The civil rights she is fighting for our your civil rights as well.
Please do not forget, dear reader, that not just anyone would have resources to fight this for even the first step. For many people this incident, small as it was, would be the end of their life. Figuratively, maybe literally.
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