Police ticket 3 year old boy $2500.00 for urinating in his front yard.

PIEDMONT, Oklahoma - A 3 year old gets his mom in trouble with the law when he gets a ticket from police. Now the little boy's mother will have to pay thousands of dollars for what the toddler did in their own front yard.

Dillan is being potty trained. His mother says he wasn't playing outside and wasn't near the facilities, so he unzipped.

News 9 was told before he could pee, a Piedmont police officer stopped him. It's a bathroom break that cost mom $2,500.

"Dillan pulled down his pants to pee outside. I guess and the cop pulled up and asked for my license and told me he was going to give me a ticket for public urination," the boy's mother, Ashley Warden, said.

"I said really, he is 3 years old, and he said it doesn't matter," said Dillan's grandmother, Jennifer Warden. "[He said] It is public urination. I said we are on our property and he said it's in public view."

The family lives on two-and-a-half acres and says the street is actually quite rural; but they say the officer who cited them parks at the end of their street daily. So they asked why.

"It's a public street and he wants to, so he can," Jennifer Warden said.

The Wardens filed a complaint with the police department. The police department didn't accept the Wardens' complaint. They have a court appearance set for next month.

"I am disappointed that the officer thinks... what he needs to do with my tax dollars is sitting and harassing our family," Jennifer Warden said.

Piedmont Police Chief Alex Oblein said the officer who ticketed a woman after her 3-year-old son tried to urinate in the family's front yard could have handled the situation better.

Ashley Warden got the ticket for public urination after her son, Dillan, who is being potty trained, dropped his pants in the front yard of the family home at 4505 Ryan Drive.

Warden and several other members of her family were outside when Dillan got the urge to go.

Officer Ken Qualls was sitting in his police cruiser nearby when he saw Dillan drop his pants, said Jennifer Warden, the boy's grandmother.

“The policeman pulled up and asked for ID,” Jennifer Warden said. “We didn't know why and he said it was for public urination. We were like, ‘He's 3 years old.' And he said it didn't matter.”

Ashley Warden said she was so enraged she tore up the ticket before taping it back together. She filed a complaint with Piedmont police.

Oblein said the incident could have been handled better. The officer was in the area because several neighbors have complained of young people vandalizing property and being out of control. He saw a teenager in the Warden family lead the boy to a spot in the yard to urinate and decided to take action.

The officer later amended the complaint to contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Oblein said he is waiting for word from the district attorney's office as to whether they will pursue the complaint, but he doesn't think it will go any further.

“My personal recommendation is I don't think the charge would stand up in court,” Oblein said. “I would strongly support them not filing it.”

Since the incident was first reported in the media, Oblein said his department has fielded hundreds of phone calls from across the U.S.
http://www.news9.com/story/20010769/three-year-old-piemont-boy-gets-2500-ticket-for-peeing-in-his-front-yard
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