FANNIN COUNTY, Ga. — A north Georgia mom is outraged after she was arrested because her 10-year-old son wandered into town less than a mile from home while she was taking her other son to a doctor's appointment.
NBC News interviewed 41-year-old Brittany Patterson, who lives in Fannin County in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She said she had left her home on Oct. 30 with her other son when all of a sudden, she got a call from the Fannin County Sheriff's Office.
It was about her 10-year-old son, Soren. According to an incident report obtained by 11Alive, deputies saw the boy walking along Mineral Bluff Highway and Spur 60 to the Bee Hive gas station in town. The boy, when asked if he was OK, told the deputies yes. When asked if he needed help, he told deputies no. The boy told deputies that he was not in school because he was home-schooled and that his grandfather was at home, according to the incident report.
Deputies then tried to get in contact with Soren's mother, Brittany. After deputies tried calling Brittany once, she declined the call and asked the deputies, unbeknownst they had called, to text her. They called a second time, and she answered. In the incident report, deputies said Brittany seemed "very unsurprised or concerned (that he was alone)."
"It's not a super dangerous or even dangerous-at-all stretch of road," Patterson told NBC News in an interview. "I wasn't terrified for him or scared for his safety."
Deputies said that Patterson told them that she was waiting for Soren to get in the car to head to the doctor's appointment for several minutes, but he never came, and she couldn't find him anywhere in the house, so she assumed he went to play in the woods. She never had a concern with his grandfather at home.
Fannin County deputies drove Soren back to the house down the road, and Brittany thought that was going to be the end of it. But little did she know it was just getting started.
Hours later, Fannin County deputies returned to the Patterson home with a warrant for the arrest for Brittany. She was being arrested and charged with reckless conduct.
When she was arrested, Brittany allegedly told deputies that she did not know how it was illegal for her child to walk to the store by himself when she was not at home and did not know where he was. According to the incident report, Patterson and her older children "found (the situation) to be a laughing matter, and (Brittany) could not comprehend why this was a serious issue."
Brittany was handcuffed in front of her children, arrested and booked into the Fannin County jail, where she had to post a $500 bond.
Deputies also alerted the Georgia Divison of Family and Child Services (DFCS) to come check on Brittany and her children.
"It was anger and frustration, of course, because my children were having to witness that all," she told NBC News. "They asked me to put my hands behind my back and all that stuff, and I realized what was going on."
NBC also reported that the sheriff's office offered to drop the charge if Patterson signs a form that outlines a safety plan guaranteeing that her children would always be under a watchful eye, according to both her and her attorney. But Patterson refuses to sign it and said she will argue the charges, which if found guilty, contains a maximum sentence of a year in jail.
"This is not right. I did nothing wrong," she told NBC News. "I'm going to fight for that."