PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - UPDATE: DCF says that the investigation is "very much open" and they are not planning on dropping the case as of right now. 
 
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 A mother faces a charge of child neglect after she allowed her son to go to a local park alone. She says he's old enough but Port St. Lucie Police disagree. Now she's fighting back. 
 
 "I'm totally dumbfounded by this whole situation," said the mother, Nicole Gainey. 
 
 It began last Saturday afternoon when Gainey gave her son Dominic permission to walk from their house to Sportsman's Park . 
 
 "Honestly didn't think I was doing anything wrong," says Gainey, "I was letting him go play. 
 
 It's a half mile from their Port St. Lucie home. Dominic says it only takes him about 10 to 15 minutes to get there. During the walk, the 7-year-old passed a public pool. Someone there asked him where his mom was. 
 
 "They asked me a couple questions and I got scared so I ran off to the park and they called the cops," says Dominic Guerrisi. 
 
 Dominic was playing at the park when an officer pulled up. 
 
 "They said 'where does your mom live,' " says Dominic. 
 
 Police took him home. That's when his mom was arrested and charged with child neglect. Gainey says she was shocked. 
 
 "My own bondsman said my parents would have been in jail every day," says Gainey who paid nearly $4,000 to bond out. 
 
 The officer wrote in the report that Dominic was unsupervised at the park and that "numerous sex offenders reside in the vicinity." 
 
 "He just basically kept going over that there's pedophiles and this and that and basically the park wasn't safe and he shouldn't be there alone," says Gainey. 
 
 She believes Dominic is mature enough to go to the park alone during the day. Gainey adds her son always has a cell phone which she calls to check on him. 
 
 "That I'm here and safe," says Dominic. 
 
 Gainey plans to fight the felony charge. But after this she won't let Dominic go to the park alone. She's afraid she'll be arrested again. 
 
 The St. Lucie County State's Attorney's office says there is no law that specifies how old a child has to be before he or she can go somewhere unsupervised. It's done on a case-by-case basis. ||||| A Florida mom was arrested this week after letting her 7-year-old son walk to the park alone. 
 
 When Nicole Gainey's son Dominic asked for permission to make the 10-15 minute walk from their house to the nearby Sportsman's Park, she said yes, making sure that he had a cellphone so that she could check on him. "I honestly didn't think I was doing anything wrong. I was letting him go play," she told WPTV. Now she's facing a felony child neglect charge. 
 
 While making the half-mile journey to the park, Dominic was stopped near a public pool and asked several questions, including where his mother was. Frightened by all of the questions, he ran off to the park, and the strangers from the pool called the cops, Fox 4 News reports. The police picked up the boy while he was playing at the park and asked "Where does your mom live?" 
 
 The officers drove Dominic home, where they proceeded to arrest his mother for child neglect. They later stated in the police report that "numerous sex offenders reside in the vicinity." Still, the mom told WPTV that she felt her son was mature enough to walk to the park alone. "I'm totally dumbfounded by this whole situation," she added. 
 
 If this story sounds familiar, it's because it's not the first time a parent has been arrested for allowing a child to go somewhere alone. Earlier this summer, mom Debra Harrell was arrested for "unlawful conduct toward a child" after letting her 9-year-old daughter play at the park while she worked her shift at McDonald's, and last year, an Ohio father became the subject of a Child Protective Services investigation after allowing his 6-year-old daughter to walk a few blocks to the post office by herself. 
 
 Lenore Skenazy, who wrote "Free Range Kids" and gives lectures around the world about "how we got so afraid for our children," spoke to The Huffington Post about this latest incident. "Are we supposed to lock all our children inside for their safety at all times, and then we're negligent child abusers if we don't?" she said. "The idea that there are predators everywhere is a false one," she added, noting that violent crime rates have dropped down to low levels not seen since the days before color TV and the time when gas only cost 29 cents per gallon. Skenazy also pointed out a study cited in an Economist article on sex offender laws in Georgia, which found that only 5 percent of the people on the registry posed an actual threat to children. 
 
 As for Nicole Gainey, she told WPTV that she plans to fight the felony charge, but that might not be necessary. The news network recently posted an update to the story online, noting that an official from the Florida Department of Children and Families told the mom she could "expect the case to be dropped." 
 
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– To all the parents who think it's OK to send their kids to the park alone, there is a new name to add to the list of those locked up for doing so. Florida mom Nicole Gainey was arrested and charged with child neglect after allowing her 7-year-old son to walk half a mile to a park to play last Saturday. NBC 5 Florida reports that the case is now expected to be dropped, but the mom was held on $4,000 bail after someone at a pool on the boy's route noticed he was alone and called the cops. There is no local law specifying at what age a child can roam alone; the cops have the authority to decide. "Honestly didn't think I was doing anything wrong," says Gainey. "I was letting him go play." But last year, an Ohio father faced similar scrutiny after letting his 6-year-old daughter walk a few blocks to the post office alone, and just a few weeks ago a South Carolina woman was arrested for letting her 9-year-old play at a park while she worked at McDonald's. "Are we supposed to lock all our children inside for their safety at all times, and then we're negligent child abusers if we don't?" Lenore Skenazy, the author of Free Range Kids, asks the Huffington Post. The arresting officer, meanwhile, wrote in his report that "numerous sex offenders reside in the vicinity" of the park where Gainey's son was found. (Check out recent reactions to arrests like this.)