By Joe Johnson
An officer on Thursday chastised an Athens man whose 4-year-old son reportedly was running in the road unsupervised outside his home in east Athens.
According to an Athens-Clarke County police report, police received three calls between 4:42 and 5:03 p.m. that the preschooler was running in the road on a side street off Cedar Shoals Drive before going back into his home.
When an officer made contact with the 24-year-old father, he explained that he had been playing video games with a headset on and did not realize his son was gone until a neighbor knocked on his door, according to the report.
The man said that his son had never gone outside without supervision and showed the officer that there were child locks on all the doors, according to the report, which noted that the child's mother was away at her job at the time.
The officer wrote in the report that the Departmen of Family and Children Services was not contacted because there was no history of abuse or neglect at the home, and the child did not appear to be in distress and looked very healthy.
The man “was advised to pay more attention and be responsible for his children,” the officer wrote in the report.