Stupid parents should be prosecuted

[scaeagles]

I'm really ticked as I write this. This happens several times a summer here in Phoenix, and I think the "it was an accident" or the "poor parent has already suffered enough" arguments are beyond old.

Today, a woman left her one year old in a car parked outside for five hours. The child, of course, baked to death. The temp in the car when she finally remembered her child was out there was over 160.

This sickens me.

No more not knowing where your child is when you have a pool. No more leaving the baby in the bathtub by itself to go answer the phone. No more forgetting you even have the kid with you and leaving it to bake in the damn car.

It may have been an accident, but there is such a thing as gross negligence. It is time for those responsible to be held responsible.

[sunnygirl]

I couldn't agree with you more.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

I think they should be neutered, not just prosecuted! :mad:

[wendybeth]

I completely agree. Accidents do happen, but these are not accidents, they are acts of extreme negligence.

Here's (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162236,00.html) another one.

[€uroMeinke]

I think it's clear this kind of stuff should happen - but I wonder what you expect out of "prosecution," Death sentence? Jail Time? something else? I'm not sure how you weigh their obvious negligence against the needs of the remaining family members. I guess you could say in these situations the children may be better in foster care, but that's quite an absolute to bandy about.

It also seems this is a product of stupidity - not sure if making an example of negligent parents would have any impact on their peers. Someone who forgets about their child for 5 hours, isn't going to remember that once upon a time some mom got the death penelty for doing the same thing.

[Prudence]

I would draw a distinction between people who forget their baby and people who intentionally leave the kid in the car while they gamble/drink/work/shop/etc...

No doubt it's one of the worst of all possible mistakes to forget that your baby is in the car. Still, I don't know what sort of criminal punishment one might mete out and where limits might be drawn. Would liability be extended to, say, parents who leave the car unlocked and the child is able to crawl inside and get stuck? (Just had a case like this locally.)

[Moonliner]

I think it's clear this kind of stuff should happen - but I wonder...

Errr, does NA know about this side of your personality?

[€uroMeinke]

Errr, does NA know about this side of your personality?

Why do you think we don't have kids?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Hmm. There was a case in recent years of a dad who usually didn't take a child to daycare. One day he had to take on the responsibility, and in his usual morning routine, completely forgot he had a 3 year old in the carseat in the back. Kid baked to death while dad was at work.

Can you imagine what that must be like for the dad....he was yards away, all day....at any point he could have gone out and saved his child....but he simply forgot, because he never had to do it before....

I'm unsure how to feel about prosecuting a man like this.

Now people that know the kid is in the car and just "go in for a minute", that's another story.

[sleepyjeff]

Hmm. There was a case in recent years of a dad who usually didn't take a child to daycare. One day he had to take on the responsibility, and in his usual morning routine, completely forgot he had a 3 year old in the carseat in the back. Kid baked to death while dad was at work.

Can you imagine what that must be like for the dad....he was yards away, all day....at any point he could have gone out and saved his child....but he simply forgot, because he never had to do it before....

I'm unsure how to feel about prosecuting a man like this.

Now people that know the kid is in the car and just "go in for a minute", that's another story.

This is so true.......take someone out of their normal routine and add a dose of tiredness and just about anyone can forget anything(including, sadly enough, a child) I draw a distinction between someone who intentionaly leaves a child in a car thinking they will be ok :rolleyes: , and someone who just plumb forgot(their punishment, the loss of the child, is far greater then anything a prosecutor could mesh out) :(

btw..........it almost happened to me........my little bundle of joy(about 4 months old) was handed to me by my wife at the last minute because she was very sick. I was to take him to grandmas house on my way to work.The long commute and the quiet baby soon had me almost hypnoticaly transfered to my normal routine and it was only when I was pulling into the driveway at work that the baby started fussing. I would like to think that I would have remembered or noticed the baby back there before I actually went into the building had he not cried out.........but I really don't know :blush:

[mistyisjafo]

I can't imagine how they forgot or why. But after 3 years of working in the D-land parking lot I'm not surprised by some people's lack of thinking. People would constantly leave a pet in their car usually with no food, water and some times not even a window crack. Back in the days when you parked in the old lot there wasn't even shade so what people were thinking when they'd lock up their pooch or kitty, I'll never know.

I know some people leave their kid in the car to "go in for just a second" but from what I learned in that parking lot is that in about 5 minutes with the window opened a "crack" the car can go from a cool 75 degrees to a sweltering 95 or more (depending on weather). Basically it becomes an oven.

So NEVER leave any pet or child in the car unless attended by an adult, even for a minute.

[scaeagles]

When I wrote the OP, I was pissed. I know I would punish myself more than anyone could ever punish me should I ever do something like this.

Having kids, I'd like to think I'd never do anything that stupid (I know I'd never have left a kid in the tub to answer the phone - that IS prosecutable if you ask me). I just look at my kids and imagine them literally cooking to death and it honestly makes me physically ill.

[Jazzman]

What I wonder about is why someone hasn't thought up a simple little device to counter this possibility? I mean, your door dings if you open it while the keys are still in the ignition. It seems a simple matter to tinker together a little device that dings if the carseat is clicked while the engine is off. Run it into the cigarette lighter or something so it can sense whether the car is on or off and program it to sound once the power cuts. It'd probably save a couple lives.

[mistyisjafo]

You should Patent that Jazzman

[blueerica]

Actually, that's an excellent idea, Jazzman.... :)

[scaeagles]

The more details that come out about the story, the more fried I am.

It wasn't the mother of the baby who left it in the car, it was the mother's sister.

Apparently, the aunt and uncle picked up the mother and baby. The aunt dropped off the hubby at work, then the mother, and then was to take the baby home to watch during the day.

While she was doing this, her children (not exactly sure how many), none older than 10, were left at home alone.

The police have asked her what she was doing during the five hours that the baby was in the car. She says she "can't account for them". What? You can't account for those five hours? That's crap. What that means is that she's covering for something that she considers worse than leaving a baby in the car to bake to death. Maybe she got high. Maybe she left with a boyfriend somewhere. Who knows. But she can't account for her whereabouts? BS.