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Virginia Mother Faces Controversial Misdemeanor Conviction; U.S. Pushes to Hold Ukraine-Russia Peace Talks. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired September 07, 2026 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Happening now: A 38-year-old man is facing assault charges after allegedly pushing through a crowd and lunging at Ohio's Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Amy Acton.

It all happened at a fair in Canfield yesterday as Acton was speaking to a crowd right inside the county Democratic Party tent.

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FMR. REP. JOHN BOCCIERI (D-OH): An armed individual came barreling through the crowd, pushing people out of the way, actually knocked down a couple of senior citizens and elderly people in the crowd right in front of Dr. Acton.

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BROWN: Authorities say they found several weapons on the man after his arrest. Acton was not hurt in the incident, but, as you just heard, several bystanders were injured.

And, in Southern Lebanon, officials there say at least nine people were killed in Israeli airstrikes overnight. The Israeli military says the strikes were triggered after a pair of Hezbollah explosive drones were launched at Israeli troops in Southern Lebanon.

Despite a cease-fire agreement with Lebanon and ongoing diplomatic talks, Israel also carried out strikes in several other areas in Southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon's national news agency.

A new video shows the tense moments after a Colorado murder suspect who was out on a $3 million bond crashed into two vehicles.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

(SCREAMING) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my (EXPLETIVE DELETED) God, dude.

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BROWN: As he allegedly tries to leave, another driver steps in front of his truck, apparently to stop him. Moments later, the suspect backs up and then drives away. He has not been charged yet in the alleged hidden run, but authorities arrested him a week later for violating the terms of his house arrest.

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And happening now: Russia and Ukraine are launching fresh drone strikes, including a Ukrainian attack on an oil refinery, as we learn more about a new push by the Trump administration to bring the war to an end. U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday in their first visit to Kyiv since the war began.

And they arrived straight from Moscow, where they held intensive talks with Vladimir Putin. A Kremlin aide called those talks -- quote -- "useful." But Witkoff is going a step further, saying he's confident they can reach a good resolution.

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STEVE WITKOFF, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST: We came to see President Putin first. We needed to hear where he stood. We had good, concrete conversation with him, which we advised President Zelenskyy and his team about.

Both sides have to come to a resolution here, and my job with -- and Jared's job together is to bring the parties together, to narrow the issues between them, to create good communication channels. And, hopefully, we began that process constructively in the last 48 hours. And we're confident that there will be a good resolution there.

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BROWN: All right, let's go live now to CNN's Clare Sebastian.

So, tell us more about what came out of these discussions, Clare.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, I think it was striking that you heard there from Steve Witkoff, that he said we began that process of getting the two sides together.

I think that really throws into sharp focus just how much time has been lost here. They're now pushing, the U.S. side, for trilateral meetings to restart. They already held three rounds of those at the beginning of this year between the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia, so they want to restart that.

So we're essentially getting back to where we were at the beginning of this year. That is one thing. But I think what is clear is that the U.S. really believes that now is the moment to reinvigorate, to restart this diplomatic process. And it was meaningful for Ukraine that the U.S. envoys turned up in

Kyiv for the first time. That was Steve Witkoff's eighth visit to Russia, by contrast. So the optics there were really important, as was the promise of potentially new aid in terms of energy and air defense to help them through winter, as was discussions of security guarantees.

So there were positive notes there for Ukraine. But I think, look, what we have now in terms of next steps, potentially trilateral meetings. The Kremlin said today that it is not ruling them out. Ukraine is open to any form of diplomacy. It just wants it to continue. So that could be the next steps.

But, look, meanwhile, there are no new ideas, as far as we know, as to how to end this escalating cycle of violence. And, as you say, there were more drone strikes, the facility belonging to British American Tobacco, a cigarette maker, was hit in a town a couple of hours east of Ukraine.

That was hit by Russia. The company says there was damage. No one, in terms of employees, was injured. And, meanwhile, Ukraine also firing drones at Russia. Russia saying it intercepted more than 300 of them overnight. We had footage of a residential building in a central region being hit.

Ukraine hasn't commented on that. So, this is an escalating war, and this diplomacy is coming in at that time of escalation, Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Clare Sebastian, thanks so much for bringing us the latest on that front.

And coming up: A Virginia mother is sparking a national debate of when is too young to let your children walk alone. Her decision to let her 5-year-old walk to a neighborhood pond alone led to charges.

Karyann Parkinson joins us next.

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BROWN: New this morning, so when does parental discretion become a public safety issue? A Virginia mother was convicted of a misdemeanor and is now on a child abuse and neglect registry after letting her 5- year-old walk alone to collect feathers in their gated community, according to "The Washington Post."

The legal fallout has sparked intense debate over parenting rights and government oversight.

And joining us now is the mother herself, Karyann Parkinson, who is currently appealing her conviction.

Karyann, thank you so much for coming on the show to talk about this.

So I want to go back to earlier in the summer. You're 8 months pregnant. You're studying for the bar exam. Tell us what happened that day.

KARYANN PARKINSON, APPEALING MISDEMEANOR CONVICTION: So, Sam and I went for our morning walk that we always go on. And as we were coming home and going past the pond near our house, he was picking up goose feathers and sticking them in his backpack.

And then he beat me home. He was on his bike. And so he dashed into the garage, put his bike away. And as I was walking up to the house, he walked out to me and asked if he could go back to get more. And I kind of thought for a second, I'm like, oh, yes we just did that walk. I know where he's going.

And I said: "Sure. I'm going to go make lunch. You go there and come right back."

And so he went. And then, about 20 minutes later, I had a security guard at my front door with my son with white eyes and a scared look on his face.

BROWN: And then what happened from there?

PARKINSON: So he was -- the security guard was upset, told me that a neighbor had seen him alone. And I said: "I gave him permission. He's OK,. He knows where he is."

And the security guard had even asked Sam to get in his truck to go home, and Sam had said: "I can't. I can't go in your truck. You're a stranger."

And so he walked the security guard home. He showed him how to get home. And so I was explaining to the security guard, this is something that he's capable of doing, and I -- this isn't against the rules of the HOA, and he said: "Well, if it's not against the rules, it's against the law, so I'm going to call the police."

So then the police came. And I -- by the time the police came, I was pretty upset, because Sam had told me that the security guard had told him there were bad people in the neighborhood who wanted to hurt him.

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So, Sam was just really upset with me and saying: "Like, are there bad people in our neighborhood?"

So, the police get there. And they're telling me that they had come because security had found him alone. And I said: "I'm really not interested in talking to you."

And they said: "Well, if you won't talk to us, then you're going to talk to CPS."

So then they called CPS, and I just thought, what is going on? Like, this is clear -- surely they have bigger fish to fry, other things to take care of. But, no, the CPS workers showed up, and my husband got home from lunch and was talking to them. And they were just insisting a 5-year-old can absolutely never be alone under any circumstances. And it was just bewildering, because it was this -- it wasn't some

impulsive parenting decision. It was -- this is a trail that Sam walks on every day. It's the trail his siblings take to go to school. It's the trail he takes to go to swim lessons, to tennis practice, to the park, to his friends' houses. He has made this walk hundreds of times.

And, suddenly, it was a crime, and I'm child abuser on a child abuse registry.

BROWN: And you're 8 months pregnant during all of this. How did that make you feel?

PARKINSON: Yes. That was horrible, honestly. That was something that just navigating that experience during the summer right before having the baby. I was served with a warrant for my arrest a week before the baby was born.

I received the notice that I had been found neglectful and would be placed on the child abuse registry on my 16th anniversary, a month after the baby was born. My trial was when my baby was 8 weeks old. And so there were a lot of crazy thoughts going through my head. Like, they could show up and take my kids away. People are going to think I'm a really bad mom.

How am I going to get through this? People are going to just think that I hurt my kids. And I really felt so isolated. And then, when Lenore Skenazy and Let Grow were really saying, we need to share this story, I was really kind of afraid of what would happen.

But it has only been positive. Let Grow has been extremely supportive. Jonathan Haidt and Lenore just helped me to get the word out and help people know that parents know their kids and we need to give them opportunities to get out and grow.

But it was extremely difficult and scary, especially being newly postpartum.

BROWN: Yes. And tell us more about how Jonathan Haidt, who's written books about the importance of kids being independent and not being on their cell phones or tablets inside and just being a kid, how has that played in to your sort of parenting style?

PARKINSON: Well, one thing that I think is really important that he writes about is that children are not going to suddenly wake up and become capable 18-year-old adults who can go out into the world and encounter difficult challenges.

That begins when they're very young. It begins with allowing them opportunities to encounter age-appropriate risks. And so when Samuel asked me, he asked to go make this trip -- and he was enthusiastic about it. He wanted to do it.

And I -- there have been other times where he's asked me to go to a friend's house and then gotten a little nervous that they would say no and came back before he even made it all the way. So I knew he was capable of that. But Jonathan Haidt, he talks about that in his book "The Anxious

Generation" and says they need opportunities to challenge themselves, to try what they're capable of. And so, as you see signs that your kid is ready to approach those risks, give them the opportunity.

And so that's exactly what we were doing with Sam. No one was pushing him to do this. This wasn't -- he didn't wander off. He wasn't lost. He knew where he was going, knew what he was doing. And it's perfectly in line with good child development that I learned when I was doing my bachelor's degree at BYU.

It's what I have taught countless parents as part of my professional career before going to law school is, give your kids a chance. We need to -- we need to allow them to stretch, because, if we are denying them opportunities to grow, then they're not going to suddenly be capable of encountering difficulty when they're an adult, when they're going to college.

But the other problem is that parents see that, if they do something that seems a little out of the ordinary or seems to have any amount of risk, even if it's reasonable risk, they're going to be subjected to all of this stigma, all of this judgment, and possibly criminal charges.

BROWN: So, on that note, in Virginia, you have what's known as the Reasonable Childhood Independence law. This bill says neglect is only when you put your child in serious, obvious danger.

Being a lawyer yourself now, having studied this, why do you interpret that this law doesn't apply to what happened in your situation? Tell us more.

PARKINSON: I think the law does apply in this situation, and those are good questions. I mean, I'm very newly out of law school, so I'm a baby lawyer.

But what's really important about that bill is that it places the decision in the parents' hands. They're the person best situated to assess the child's ability. And that really wasn't something that was taken into consideration at my trial at all.

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It was simply the police and CPS felt like 5 was too young and so 5 is too young, and without any sort of recognition of the fact that this was a reasonable childhood activity on foot, near home, and that he was capable of taking that risk on his own.

BROWN: What do you say, though -- and I know you have you heard from the security guard and others and you were convicted by this judge of delinquency of a minor charge.

What do you say to those who say 5 years old is just too young to be out alone, given present-day dangers?

PARKINSON: I think every child is different. When my -- I have five children. When my third was 5, I wouldn't have

let her do that same activity because she wasn't ready for that, right, and she didn't ask. And so I think what's important is, we shouldn't be drawing bright-line rules and saying never, always, under any circumstances.

Especially saying things like in today's world, the world has never been safer, honestly. America has never had lower rates of child kidnapping. I think Lenore Skenazy talks about, if you wanted your child to be kidnapped, you would have to leave him outside for 700,000 years to guarantee that outcome, because it's just so rare.

And we hear about it all the time, and we care about kids and we want them to be safe. But we also are not very good at predicting how risky certain things are. It's much more dangerous to get in the car and drive to the grocery store than it is to let a kid walk down the sidewalk in his own neighborhood.

And so I understand that people have those concerns, and I'm not telling people how they should parent. Everyone should look at their own children and determine what they think is right for their kids. But what we shouldn't do is criminalize people who do know their children and do know what they're capable of and allow them to explore those capabilities.

BROWN: All right, Karyann Parkinson, thank you.

And, by the way, congrats on finishing law school. That is no small fees.

PARKINSON: Thank you.

BROWN: ... juggling all that you juggle with your kids, my goodness. Thank you so much.

PARKINSON: Thank you. Thank you.

BROWN: I want to talk more about this case with former federal prosecutor Berit Berger.

Berit, I want to start just with this charge, contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Explain what that means and what it's typically associated with.

BERIT BERGER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Yes, so this is really interesting.

There's no uniform national rule that establishes things like what age can a child walk by themselves, bike by themselves, stay home by themselves. You see different approaches taken by different states. So you alluded to this Virginia provision.

So it's interesting. Virginia is one of these reasonable independence states. And there's a growing number of these that sort of expressly protect certain unsupervised activity. This protection isn't absolute, and courts have to look at the child's age and maturity. But, usually, these kind of charges are for when somebody is left

alone for hours and hours, situations where a child might be left in a hot car, things that really exceed what any parent would think of as normal responsible parenting.

Here, this is a situation where you have two sets of discretion, right? You have the discretion of the parent who, as you heard Ms. Parkinson saying, who really thought, in the context, given her children and what she knows about each of them, that this was an age- appropriate activity for her child, and then the discretion of law enforcement, who sees this through a different lens.

Obviously, these two don't always line up neatly, but it is surprising to me that they brought this kind of a charge for that kind of activity.

BROWN: Yes, like I mentioned, you had the judge convicting her of a minor charge of first-degree misdemeanor, which comes with a six-month jail sentence, by the way. The judge suspended that sentence, pending good behavior and compliance with CPS' conditions.

But I guess the question is, how unusual is it to see this applied in this way, given the circumstances here?

BERGER: So I won't say it never happens. There are -- we have seen a lot of examples of situations where parents have made what they considered to be thoughtful decisions, law enforcement sees it differently and gets involved.

This one seems particularly striking, given all of the thought and consideration that went into this mother's decision here. This doesn't appear to be somebody who was checked out, who was doing this haphazardly. She seemed to have put some thought behind it.

Now, as I see this, is this a situation where it was right for the security guard to stop, to ask questions, even for law enforcement to ask questions to make sure that this is something that's being done thoughtfully? Absolutely.

Is this something where we should have resources dedicated to bringing a criminal case? I'm not sure. I don't think -- the criminal law is not always the best venue for some of these things to be -- for these things to be considered in.

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BROWN: And it's not in isolation.

BERGER: And so it's not rare, not totally rare, but it doesn't happen all the time.

BROWN: No, it's not rare. I mean, it is not happening in isolation. You have this example. In Maryland, Georgia, and Texas, parents have also been held with a similar way, delinquency of a minor. They have been responsible held responsible for child neglect for allowing their children to walk around independently.

Some of those charges have later been dropped. But it does raise the question, how do different states approach the issue of free-range parenting from a legal perspective? Because it's -- like you said, there's no clear bright line.

BERGER: Yes, so states really take sort of these three approaches.

So, as we talked about, Virginia, Utah, other states have these sort of reasonable independence laws that protect this activity. Other states apply these kind of broader neglect standards. So they don't specifically embrace, like, free-range parenting, but they define neglect in general terms, right?

If you fail to provide adequate supervision, put your child in a situation that could be dangerous, you might fall into this general neglect. And then you have states that don't have any particular age rules, right? New York would fall into that.

So there's not one statewide minimum in the state where I am, in New York, for a kid where they could be left home, something like that. The state actually says there are certain circumstances where a 12- year-old left at home could be -- that could be neglect. There are circumstances where an 8-year-old that's left at home, if there's -- depending on the circumstances, could be OK.

So you sort of have these three approaches. There is, I will say, this a real movement, a push coming from a lot of states to embrace more of these reasonable independence protections for exactly this kind of situation, really driven by parents who feel that a lot of their rights to make thoughtful decisions for their children have really been infringed.

BROWN: All right, Berit Berger, thank you for coming on to help us understand the legal aspects of all of this. We appreciate it.

And here's what's coming up all new at the top of the hour.

Invisible injuries. How one family is fighting to raise awareness of brain injuries among elite rescuers in the Coast Guard. That's all new next hour.

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