MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Police said she denied her kids their education, so they are denying her her freedom.
Latrice Coleman was charged with three counts of violating compulsory school action, essentially failing to bring her kids to school.
Police said the arrest stemmed from outstanding warrants from last October.
One neighbor, ALC Wilson, said there is no excuse for it.
Wilson told WREG he has a lot of grandkids.
A whole lot of grandkids.
“I’ve got too many to count! I’ve got about 19 in all,” he said proudly.
Wilson said growing up he was not allowed to go to school.
“I had to work in the fields. They would not let us go to school,” he recalled.
So he worked especially hard to make sure his kids and now grandchildren received the best education.
“I haul a lot of my grandkids to school. Their mommas and daddies are working, but I get up everyday,” he said.
That’s why he was mad to hear his neighbor, Coleman, was charged with failing to bring her kids to school.
“They need to lock them up. That’s what they need to do,” he said. “Their mothers, they can make their kids do better.”
Police said they were called to the 4000 block of Knob Drive in North Memphis, because a group of young kids were fighting.
While there, they found Coleman had outstanding warrants for violating compulsory school attendance and arrested her.
“If that don’t wake her up, ain’t nothing going to wake her up,” Wilson said.
The Shelby County School System and Memphis Police Department have worked to improve school attendance and cut down on truancy.
But not everyone believed arresting parents is the right way to do it.
“They should have come out and talked to her and had a meeting with her and her kids to see what was going on in the household instead of locking her up,” Neighbor Samantha Shell said.
Coleman’s bond was set at $6,000.
