Police Apologise After Breastfeeding Mum Is Threatened With ARREST

Feeding a hungry baby can be tricky enough without somebody looming over you, pointing out that your areola is showing. But that's exactly what happened to young mum Savannah Shukla when she took her 20 month-old and her newborn baby to a supermarket this week. And the breastfeeding shamer? A local police officer.

Ms Shukla, from Columbus in the US state of Georgia, spoke out about the incident on Facebook, after a Sheriff's deputy ordered her to cover up.

"Tonight while in Piggly Wiggly with my sister and both my children (the oldest 20mos and the youngest 1month old today) while nursing a Deputy approached me right when I was about to leave and informed that I needed to cover up because someone might find it "offensive" I repeated the law back to him stating that Georgia state law says I can breastfeed however most comfortable wherever I want as long as I'm authorized to be there."

According to Ms Shukla, the deputy became flustered but persisted, saying:

"You just THINK you know what the law says and if your nipple becomes exposed I really don't want to have to arrest you or you be arrested for being offensive. This isn't like the first amendment where you can say something offensive."

Bizarrely, according to the mum's account, the officer then pointed out that he could "already see" her areola. "For him to see my areola he would've had to have been staring VERY hard." she said. In response to the public uproar over the incident and a formal complaint, Muscogee County Sheriff John T. Darr took to Facebook to confirm that public breastfeeding is legal in Georgia and to apologise to Ms Shukla and mums in general: A full investigation will be carried out and officers are to undergo further training, presumably to help them decipher 'offensive' breasts from...er... non offensive breasts.