It’s not a good idea to drive around with your child attached to the roof of your vehicle. In other news, the sky is blue.
File this one under: Stupid parental decisions, and give Jackie Denise Knott a prize (see: jail time) for personifying the definition of a word that Webster has yet to list: CLUELESSNESS!
The Alabama mom allegedly endangered her 13-year-old daughter’s life, just so she could get a large cardboard box home in one piece.
We’ve all been there before, right? We purchase an empty cardboard box at the store, but when we get out to the parking lot we realize that the box won’t fit into the car. When faced with this predicament most sane parents figure out a way to transport the box home without causing harm to our children.
Not Knott.
According to police reports, the 37-year-old mother placed the oversized box on top of her vehicle, and when contemplating what she should weigh it down with, Knott chose her teenage daughter.
Yes, Knott decided to use her own flesh and blood as a paperweight to keep the box from flying off the roof of her vehicle.
And lest you think that the Knott was being reckless by cramming her kid into a box, placing her on top of a vehicle, and driving down a busy highway, consider that the mom reportedly did her best to ensure that the box — and her daughter — didn’t fall off the car mid-commute by securing the box to the vehicle with a clothes hanger.
It took a 911 call by a passing motorist and several police cars to finally get Knott to pull off of U.S. 431. Miraculously, Knott’s 13-year-old did not suffer any physical injuries (the jury’s still out on how much emotional damage the teen sustained). However, that was little consolation to Knott, who insisted to police that what she was doing was perfectly acceptable because she was using the clothes hanger safety strap.
Needless to say, the officers were not impressed.
In the end, Knott’s daughter was taken into child protective custody and later released to a relative while police charged the delusional mother with endangering the welfare of a child.
Food for thought the next time you consider using your kid as a paperweight.
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