DeLAND, Fla. – A mother from DeLand is upset after a park ranger told her son, who has autism, he's too old to play at Freedom Playground.
The incident happened Saturday, during Autism Awareness Month, and now that mother wants to share her experience so it doesn't happen to any others kids.
"It's just disbelief, we weren't doing anything wrong. It's a playground," Kimberly Escudero said.
She and her 15-year-old son, Andrew, have been going to Freedom Playground for more than a decade.
"That's always the first thing he asks to do," she said.
But a visit over the weekend was unlike any other. Escudero said a park ranger approached Andrew, asked him how old he was and then told him the park is for children 12 and younger.
Escudero told the ranger Andrew has autism -- it's different for every child, but for Andrew, it means that he's in school at a kindergarten level. Still, Escudero said the ranger would not give in.
"People tend to back off once they realize the situation, but she didn't. That's the part that really kinda hurt," she said.
Andrew saw his mother was upset, so the two then went to another playground.
"It's an unfortunate situation and I'm sorry," DeLand Parks and Recreation Director Rick Hall said. "We certainly are not discriminatory against anyone who comes into our parks."
Hall said the park ranger was recently hired and should have used more discretion. He also pointed out teenagers are typically banned from parks so they don't bump into little children running around.
"We built this playground intentionally to be an all-inclusive playground, which it is. It's a community-built playground," he said.
"We all have to teach our children not everyone is going to be nice and not everyone is going to be fair," Escudero said.
The director said since the park was renovated a year and a half ago, an incident like this has not happened with its more than 100,000 visitors.
Still, the ranger will be retrained.