An online columnist and mother of a 3-year-old preschooler recently shared a playground experience that would get most parents’ blood boiling.

During a recent visit to a local playground, Emily McCombs’ son collided with a young girl while riding his bicycle, and the girl’s mother called the police to press charges, McCombs wrote on her blog xoJane.com.

“I was sitting on a bench, in a spot where I could see the entire circular track the kids scoot and ride their bikes around. When my son didn’t complete his lap in a timely manner, I stood up to look for him and saw him standing with a family including several children. He’s extremely social and often stops to talk and make friends, so I assumed he was just chatting with them,” she wrote.

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“A minute or so later I heard him yelling ‘Mommy, Mommy.’ I ran over to find two children sobbing hysterically, a little girl and my son.

“A woman sitting nearby volunteered, ‘I saw the whole thing! They ran into each other. They’re both just scared.’ I gathered my son into my arms and comforted him, telling him it was OK, that it was an accident.

“’I didn’t mean to knock her over,’ he sobbed. He then repeatedly tried to apologize to the little girl and her mother, who ignored him. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he sputtered over and over.”

McCombs wrote that she asked the girl’s mother if the child was OK, and learned the girl’s tooth was “wiggly” and bleeding. As she walked away to comfort her still sobbing son, the girl’s mother told her to stay, because she called the police.

“’Your son hit my daughter,’ she said. ‘I called the police.’

“At that moment, my internal Mama Bear rose up to her hind legs and bared her claws. ‘He’s 3 YEARS OLD. It was an accident,’ I snarled/yelled. I have never in my life felt an assertiveness so strong for my own self, but when it came to my kid, I felt an unprecedented sense of agency and strength. I know I would stand up for my child in absolutely any way needed to protect him,” McCombs wrote.

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McCombs managed to keep her composure and comforted her son until police arrived. Officers spoke to the girl’s mother, who allegedly lied about the timeline of the incident, telling police McCombs didn’t come to check on her son until 20 minutes after the collision.

Police explained to the mother that accidents happen on the playground, and assured her the 3-year-old had no malicious intent. The officer offered to call an ambulance, which the mother accepted, and McCombs kept her distance until the young girl was on her way to the hospital.

The officer told McCombs the woman wanted to press charges, but he didn’t pursue it as a criminal complaint.

“’Ya, he’s a maniac, right?’ the police officer said winkingly, before he and his partner headed on their way,” McCombs wrote in her blog, which also appeared on Yahoo! Parenting.

The moral of McCombs’ story is that while police were reasonable during the ordeal, that might not always be the case. Her son is black, and although she’s proud of her maternal instincts kicking in to protect him, she fears for the day when she won’t be there.

She concluded:

I don’t know if there was a racial component to what happened this time, but I can’t help but flash forward to someday when someone may wrongfully point their finger at my son again, someday when he’s not an adorable 3-year-old, someday when I’m not there to speak for him.

And I think that’s why my guts are still roiling days later, why I am still feeling emotional about an incident that everyone seems to agree was crazy, but over now. That I shouldn’t let it get to me. It got to me. I’m not over it. I wish I was.

But if nothing else, I am glad I felt that Mama Bear rise up inside me. I am glad that I knew, in that moment, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would and will always do anything, ANYTHING to protect my son. Because, unfortunately, he lives in a world where he needs a little extra protection.