A Georgia mother said she was charged with disorderly conduct after allowing her 3-year-old son to urinate in a parking lot.
She said she was driving to Augusta, Georgia, when her 3-year-old boy, Cohen, said he had to go to the bathroom.
“He’s like, ‘Mom, I’ve got to pee. I’ve got to pee!’ I was like, ‘Well, hold on,’ and he’s like, ‘No! I’ve GOT to pee! I’ve got to REALLY pee.’ And I’m like, ‘Baby, there’s nowhere for me to go, and he says, ’Momma, I’m about to pee in my pants!” she said.
Johns, who was told by her doctor not to pick her 3-year-old up because she’s eight months pregnant, added that they couldn’t make it inside a gas station after pulling over in the parking lot.
“I can’t pick him up,” Brooke told the news outlet. “You know, I’m not supposed to lift him.”
That’s when she allowed her son to relieve himself in the parking lot, adding that “obviously he had to go,” Johns said.
A Richmond County deputy arrived and told her to take him into the bathroom.
“Accidents happen. And he was like, ‘Take him in the bathroom.’ What if I would have ran in the bathroom and someone had been in there? What I was going to let him do? Pee on the floor of the gas station?” Brooke told WRDW.
Instead, the deputy cited her with a disorderly conduct charge.
“She allowed her male child to urinate in the parking lot. I observed ... the urination. Public restrooms are offered at the location,” the ticket said.
“I’m going to court April 30,” Brooke said. “Several days before I am due. Yeah, I could extend it, but I would rather deal with it when I’m pregnant. Not when I have a newborn.”
Johns said that she didn’t post the picture on Facebook to criticize the police.
“The point of this isn’t to bash the cops it is to make a stand for what I did and why and yes I got rude but I didn’t get rude until after I was accused numerous times of showing my son’s [genitalia] which was impossible. The only thing that was visible are his legs and his pee hitting the ground,” she said.
A person who said they worked as a police officer thought the charge was excessive.
“I’m a cop. There is letter of the law and spirit of the law. I pulled a woman over with a $5,000 warrant. She had her two kids In the car. Low-income neighborhood. I told her about the warrant and let her go,” he said. “The kids would have to go to some sort of foster home, even if it’s for the night until we get in touch with family and do that process. She would go to jail and also have to pay for the car being towed and everything. Sometimes you have to make the humane call.”
