Boy left at safe haven still in state custody

A decision is pending on whether a 12-year-old Smyrna boy whose mother dropped him in a Nebraska safe haven location Saturday will be reunited with his family.

A hearing on the boy’s plight has been continued until Dec. 4. He is being held in protective custody in Georgia.

Tysheema Brown, the child’s mother, declined comment as she left a Cobb County Juvenile Court hearing Thursday afternoon. Reporters were not allowed in the hearing.

“We are negotiating a resolution,” said John Valente, Brown’s attorney.

Brown drove 15 hours Saturday and dropped her son at a Lincoln, Neb., hospital. She was taking advantage of a Nebraska law that allows parents of unwanted children as old as 18 to be left at a safe haven. The law provides the parents will not be prosecuted.

Nebraska was the last state to enact a law that was intended to prevent parents from abandoning or killing unwanted newborns. But, since the law took effect in July, 24 children —- including a 17-year-old boy who was dropped off Wednesday night —- have been abandoned in Nebraska. None were newborns and three have been from other states.

Nebraska lawmakers are to meet in a special session Nov. 14 to revise the law to set an age limit.

There is no nationwide consensus on what the age limit should be. At least 15 states, including Georgia, use a 3-day-old threshold, according to the National Safe Haven Alliance. In Iowa the limit is 14 days, and in South Dakota, it is 60 days.

Brown told reporters earlier this week that she loved her son, who has behavioral problems, but could not get him the help he needs in Georgia.

Brown hoped Nebraska officials would enroll her son in Boys Town, a private school that has been taking care of troubled children for nearly a century. When Brown was a senior in high school in the 1990s, her mother enrolled her in the school to help her get her life together.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.