Hatsumomo
05-21-2007, 04:25 PM
It's summertime and 'tis the season for parents to "forget" their small children in the car and let the babies cook to death in the extreme temperatures. For example:
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A 1-year-old boy died after being left alone in a car for hours as temperatures soared into the 80s, and his father was charged with negligent homicide, police said.
Timothy Reid was found unresponsive by his father, Robert Reid, Tuesday afternoon, nearly seven hours after Reid had parked the car and went to work. Emergency workers pronounced the toddler dead at the scene and said the temperature inside the car was 142 degrees.
Reid, 43, was charged with criminally negligent homicide and aggravated child abuse and neglect, Lt. Tim Carroll said Wednesday.
"The punishment is done regardless of what happens in court," Carroll said. "He is torn up. He reacted the way a parent should react who has lost a child."
Police said Reid took his three other children, ages 6, 10 and 12, to school Tuesday morning and had intended to take Timothy to day care before driving to work.
Investigators said Reid instead went to work and left the boy in the car seat. The boy was discovered when Reid went to his car to go pick up the children that afternoon.
"You can forget to pick up a gallon of milk, but you don't forget you left a 15-month-old in your car," Carroll said.
The outside temperature Tuesday reached 89 degrees, just one degree shy of a record for the date, according to the National Weather Service.
Reid was released on a $15,000 bond pending a May 23 court hearing; records show he did not yet have a lawyer. A woman who answered the phone at Unishippers, the business owned by the boy's parents, said no one was making any comment Wednesday.
http://www.comcast.net/news/national/index.jsp?cat=DOMESTIC&fn=/2007/05/02/652426.html&cvqh=itn_boyleftincar
There was also one on the local news here where a father "forgot" his toddler son in the car and the baby was left in the car for 9 hours overnight.
I wonder how many of these cases are actually cases of forgetting their children and how many are just outright murder that they get away with because it's deemed human error and "the parents have suffered enough." I guess the forces behind the law are wondering the same thing because they're starting to lay the smackdown and bringing up charges of gross negligence and others and going for the prison sentences instead of pulling the "haven't they gone through enough? I'm sure they feel guilty!" card.
Now, I forget things and leave them somewhere else all the time, but I rarely forget something uber-important and especially not for the duration of a work shift or overnight. So I honestly don't see how you forget your kid in the car. Or the dumb asswipes that think, "Oh, he/she'll be okay in the car for a few minutes!" Uh, no. Hot temperature outside + car with no A/C running + baby not dexterous enough to escape from car seat and get out of boiling car = cooked baby. And usually those "few minutes" add to almost an hour or more.
What a miserable death for anybody.
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A 1-year-old boy died after being left alone in a car for hours as temperatures soared into the 80s, and his father was charged with negligent homicide, police said.
Timothy Reid was found unresponsive by his father, Robert Reid, Tuesday afternoon, nearly seven hours after Reid had parked the car and went to work. Emergency workers pronounced the toddler dead at the scene and said the temperature inside the car was 142 degrees.
Reid, 43, was charged with criminally negligent homicide and aggravated child abuse and neglect, Lt. Tim Carroll said Wednesday.
"The punishment is done regardless of what happens in court," Carroll said. "He is torn up. He reacted the way a parent should react who has lost a child."
Police said Reid took his three other children, ages 6, 10 and 12, to school Tuesday morning and had intended to take Timothy to day care before driving to work.
Investigators said Reid instead went to work and left the boy in the car seat. The boy was discovered when Reid went to his car to go pick up the children that afternoon.
"You can forget to pick up a gallon of milk, but you don't forget you left a 15-month-old in your car," Carroll said.
The outside temperature Tuesday reached 89 degrees, just one degree shy of a record for the date, according to the National Weather Service.
Reid was released on a $15,000 bond pending a May 23 court hearing; records show he did not yet have a lawyer. A woman who answered the phone at Unishippers, the business owned by the boy's parents, said no one was making any comment Wednesday.
http://www.comcast.net/news/national/index.jsp?cat=DOMESTIC&fn=/2007/05/02/652426.html&cvqh=itn_boyleftincar
There was also one on the local news here where a father "forgot" his toddler son in the car and the baby was left in the car for 9 hours overnight.
I wonder how many of these cases are actually cases of forgetting their children and how many are just outright murder that they get away with because it's deemed human error and "the parents have suffered enough." I guess the forces behind the law are wondering the same thing because they're starting to lay the smackdown and bringing up charges of gross negligence and others and going for the prison sentences instead of pulling the "haven't they gone through enough? I'm sure they feel guilty!" card.
Now, I forget things and leave them somewhere else all the time, but I rarely forget something uber-important and especially not for the duration of a work shift or overnight. So I honestly don't see how you forget your kid in the car. Or the dumb asswipes that think, "Oh, he/she'll be okay in the car for a few minutes!" Uh, no. Hot temperature outside + car with no A/C running + baby not dexterous enough to escape from car seat and get out of boiling car = cooked baby. And usually those "few minutes" add to almost an hour or more.
What a miserable death for anybody.