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From the Washington Free Beacon: “We are putting parents on notice,” then-California attorney general Kamala Harris warned at her 2011 inauguration. “If you fail in your responsibility to your kids, we are going to work to make sure you face the full force and consequences of the law.”
Two years later, Cheree Peoples, a single mom of a special needs child, was jailed under a truancy law that Vice President Harris championed as San Francisco district attorney and later as attorney general.
Harris repeatedly asserted the need to crack down on truancy during her law enforcement career. “These children will invariably be what will end up in our criminal justice system,” Harris said while testifying in favor of a statewide truancy bill. In her 2011 inaugural address, Harris said it was “time to get serious about the problem of chronic truancy in California.” She noted that as San Francisco district attorney, she “threatened the parents of truants with prosecution” and saw truancy rates go down.
But Peoples was not some deadbeat parent allowing her children to play hooky. Her daughter Shayla has sickle cell anemia, a rare genetic condition that afflicts its sufferers with chronic pain. After Shayla, then 11 years old, missed 20 days of school in 2013, police officers arrested Cheree for violating the truancy law, a misdemeanor that carried a $2,500 fine and up to one year in jail. Peoples, who had an infant son when she was arrested, battled with the court system for two and a half years to clear her arrest, which she was worried would hurt her future job prospects.
Despite that she had an agreement with the school regarding her disabled daughter, Peoples was arrested after she refused to take her daughter to school to confirm to the school administrators that Shayla was really sick.
“You want me to send my child to school like that? I’m going straight to the ER,” People said in a prior interview, while showing a video of her ill daughter. “This is what I was faced with when I see my child in sickle cell pain, and you want me to bring her to school first, for you to tell me she’s too sick to come to school?”
Instead, the mother was arrested and hauled off to jail. She was later released the same day, but then had to endure a lengthy court battle to get the charges dropped.
Peoples explained that parents charged under the California law are “more than likely … low-income. Most of the time we’re single parents.”
“Her name is attached to that law, because she pushed it to the governor without the people’s vote,” Peoples recalled.
Now, Peoples is horrified to learn that the very prosecutor who slapped her in handcuffs is running for president of the United States, and she’s speaking out to say, “No way!”
Peoples first spoke out against Harris when she ran for president in 2019. In a Facebook post, she wrote, “I can’t believe this. The one responsible for sending me to jail. Just because my child is sick. Now she’s running for president. No way not to day. Do not vote for #kamalaharris.”
Below is a clip from a previous interview:
Did you know Cheree Peoples is on twitter? @PeoplesCheree
Cheree is a Black mother who was courageous enough to share her story of being arrested and jailed by @kamalaharris because her chronically ill daughter missed too much school.
A clip from @ToneTalks interview with her pic.twitter.com/Yt3dkGFJaa
— ADOS Advocacy Foundation (@ADOSorg) July 29, 2024
Peoples is being interviewed about her story Tuesday afternoon on the “Tonetalks” podcast. Watch below:
Kamala’s Truancy Law Put a Black Single Mom of a Special Needs Child in Handcuffs. Years Later, She’s Speaking Out.https://t.co/uUDUNl3WD0
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) July 30, 2024
