Quote:
Originally Posted by Baby Lee
'Authority' is likely, first off a community where it's a good guess that the parents will be more grateful than hostile, and will exercise authority over their offspring sufficient to keep the minors from making a stink, . . . and likely 'soft' authority where the officer didn't so much detain them forcefully and compel them to call parents, as they persuaded them it's best to stay with the officer and contact the parents for rendez-vous, and finally the implicit final decision that, so long as things went smoothly, the only consequence would be reuniting the minors with the parents, tip of the cap, and have a good evening.
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I would venture to say that he likely implied they could be in trouble with the police if they didn't call a parent to come pick them up. If there is no curfew and the kids were not committing, or suspected of committing, a crime... then the officer simply used his position to get some kids off the street because he didn't want them there (whatever his internal motivation be it their safety or his thoughts on where kids their age should be at that time of day).
He could have just hung back and watched them and let them have their 3AM stroll while making sure they were safe when they were doing absolutely nothing wrong. Some of my best memories were of late night / early morning strolls through my neighborhood as a kid.
Either way... we are both just guessing as to the exact interaction they had along with the officer's motivation. I just prefer it when officers do things according to law vs their personal beliefs on child rearing and what times of the day are age appropriate to be walking down a sidewalk... so I ask questions like I did.