Struggling single mother jailed over accidental fire finds outpouring of help
Source: The Guardian
Struggling single mother jailed over accidental fire finds outpouring of help
Joanna Walters
Sunday 24 April 2016 13.30 BST
The scene that confronted firefighters was harrowing. Two young boys who had been left home alone and found a lighter to play with had accidentally set the apartment on fire and now were unconscious due to smoke inhalation.
They managed to revive the children, and their mother was soon in jail, her police mugshot doing the rounds on local media in St Louis, Missouri, where the near-tragedy occurred in February.
But then something unusual happened.
When people in the city heard the young woman was a single mother, with no criminal record, who had left her sons at home in desperation so she could go to her low-paid job and make rent before the landlord evicted them, they took action.
Thomas Payton, an emergency medical technician who was on duty at the hospital when the boys were brought in, was just one of a number of concerned citizens who went to court on her behalf and begged for leniency for the mother, Jeannetta Maclin, 23.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/24/jeannetta-maclin-fire-justice-system
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