[joelseph]

neg·li·gence/ˈnegləjəns/ Noun: Failure to take proper care in doing something: "some of these accidents are due to negligence". Failure to use reasonable care, resulting in damage or injury to another. gross (grs) adj. gross·er, gross·est 1. a. Exclusive of deductions; total: gross profits. See Synonyms at whole. b. Unmitigated in any way; utter: gross incompetence. 2. Glaringly obvious: gross injustice. See Synonyms at flagrant.

Well fuck, better kill her.

[Baconsammy]

Oh right, I forgot it's some nefarious plot for the woman to kill of her children.

You nor I have proof that it wasn't, do we? Arrest her, try her, let the facts speak and have a jury decide.

[DjangoReinhardt]

Well fuck, better kill her.

I must have missed the post where I stated that. Please quote and/or link it for me.

[Orayn]

You nor I have proof that it wasn't, do we? Arrest her, try her, let the facts speak and have a jury decide.

1. Excessive suspicion surrounding the deaths of children gets innocent people locked up distressingly often.
2. If she's not being charged, it's because they didn't have reason to believe it was intentional.

You do know how presumption of innocence works, right?

[Baconsammy]

1. Excessive suspicion surrounding the deaths of children gets innocent people locked up distressingly often. 2. If she's not being charged, it's because they didn't have reason to believe it was intentional. You do know how presumption of innocence works, right?

Same thing happened with George Zimmerman. Presumption of innocence comes into play when someone goes to trial. It's something they say to a jury. It's not a tenet that law enforcement is based upon. Sounds like you don't know what how it works, to be honest.

[Mammoth Jones]

Same thing happened with George Zimmerman. Presumption of innocence comes into play when someone goes to trial. It's something they say to a jury. It's not a tenet that law enforcement is based upon.

Wait...what?

Did you really try to GodZim this thread?

[C4Lukins]

I just don't get how you get out of your car and don't see your kid there. I mean...do people not look? Hell, I look just to check my car....can't imagine....

We do weird things when our attention is elsewhere. I have backed into a car that was directly behind mine in my own driveway before. Not the same thing as leaving a kid but I certainly should have seen the car behind me as I was walking to my car. And no alcohol was not involved.

[Advance_Alarm]

Hitler was fatigued and depressed after leaving art school. It is not his fault that his brain shut down and he killed millions of people. Any punishment society gives him won't compare to how he punishes himself.

[joelseph]

Hitler was fatigued and depressed after leaving art school. It is not his fault that his brain shut down and he killed millions of people. Any punishment society gives him won't compare to how he punishes himself.

What the fuck is wrong with people in this thread? Admitting its a tough story is one thing, playing devils advocate and relating it to the holocaust is another.

[Orayn]

Hitler was fatigued and depressed after leaving art school. It is not his fault that his brain shut down and he killed millions of people. Any punishment society gives him won't compare to how he punishes himself.

Godwin achieved already? This is the point of no return, folks.



EDIT:

Why wouldn't I? It's the biggest case that refutes his following statement: 2. If she's not being charged, it's because they didn't have reason to believe it was intentional. As the police involved in the Zimmerman case proved, just because some shitty police officers don't think they have a reason to charge a suspect doesn't mean the suspect shouldn't be tried.

Do I need to put huge asterisks on every sentence to denote what's based on currently available information and what's me making a proclamation with metaphysical certitude? I really don't think I should have to.

[Baconsammy]

Wait...what? Did you really try to GodZim this thread?

Why wouldn't I? It's the biggest case that refutes his following statement:

2. If she's not being charged, it's because they didn't have reason to believe it was intentional.

As the police involved in the Zimmerman case proved, just because some shitty police officers don't think they have a reason to charge a suspect doesn't mean the suspect shouldn't be tried.

[Mammoth Jones]

Why wouldn't I? It's the biggest case that refutes his following statement: 2. If she's not being charged, it's because they didn't have reason to believe it was intentional. As the police involved in the Zimmerman case proved, just because some shitty police officers don't think they have a reason to charge a suspect doesn't mean the suspect shouldn't be tried.

Yea...um....no.

[BlueSteel]

I don't think she should be charged with anything. Not going to do anything worse to her than what she's going to inflict on herself.

And regarding the idea that charging her will set a precedence preventing others from doing the same. Given the circumstances, where a parent is exhausted, I doubt setting precedence will help anything at all.

[Riggs]

Bacon as a rule of thumb, never mention Zimmerman case.

[Deified Data]

My mom left me in the car when she went to buy pot. I'd be all alone in a car in a dangerous part of town for like an hour. Amazed nothing awful never happened to me.

[Zee-Row]

If it was a dog left in the car it would of caused a bigger shitstorm from what i've seen in the past.

[Riggs]

If it was a dog left in the car it would of caused a bigger shitstorm from what i've seen in the past.

Probably. Whole thing is pretty sad though, I feel bad for everyone. Parent was a fucking idiot to say the least. I am sure she's beating herself up for it pretty badly.

[SnakeswithLasers]

neg·li·gence/ˈnegləjəns/ Noun: Failure to take proper care in doing something: "some of these accidents are due to negligence". Failure to use reasonable care, resulting in damage or injury to another. gross (grs) adj. gross·er, gross·est 1. a. Exclusive of deductions; total: gross profits. See Synonyms at whole. b. Unmitigated in any way; utter: gross incompetence. 2. Glaringly obvious: gross injustice. See Synonyms at flagrant.

Accidental death: Death resulting from an accident from an unusual event that was unanticipated by everyone involved.

[Baconsammy]

Bacon as a rule of thumb, never mention Zimmerman case.

When it fits it fits. Just because investigators say someone shouldnt be charged, doesnt mean he/she shouldnt be charged. If people other than the cops investigate this woman (child services etc) and deem it an accident, then so be it. The point being you can't just take the person's word for it, because in a world full of shitty people, someone that's tired of having a kid is going to copy this.

it is definitely bad parent day today.

Yeah, between this woman and the one in the other thread who abandoned her daughter in order to save her purse, it's not a good day for parenting.

[winjet81]

If it was a dog left in the car it would of caused a bigger shitstorm from what i've seen in the past.

Damn right... if this was a dog, the owner would be charged with animal cruelty and the SPCA would insure they would never own a pet again.

Yet, people in this thread are fine with letting parents go scott-free for baking their 13-month-old in the back seat.

[Zamorro]

I keep hearing these stories. Isn't there something you can add to the cars to prevent stuff like this?

Of course you could easily think of some mandatory device for all new cars that combines a CO2 sensor with a temperature sensor and a sensor that determines if the car is moving.

The question though is if people would be willing to pay an extra amount of let's say $50 for a new car. My guess is that most people don't want to pay that amount for potentially saving someone else's baby (or dog).

[Riggs]

Damn right... if this was a dog, the owner would be charged with animal cruelty and the SPCA would insure they would never own a pet again. Yet, people in this thread are fine with letting parents go scott-free for baking their 13-month-old in the back seat.

Lol animal cruelty charges are almost non existent in america. Not sure what you are talking about. Unless you are running a dog fighting ring Mike Vick style you almost never get serious charges for killing animals.

I do agree with your 2nd point though. I am not going to say what she should be sentenced to, I am sure if it was really an accident the rest of her life will be sentence enough.

[Baconsammy]

Damn right... if this was a dog, the owner would be charged with animal cruelty and the SPCA would insure they would never own a pet again. Yet, people in this thread are fine with letting parents go scott-free for baking their 13-month-old in the back seat.

I actually think you only get charged with animal cruelty if you crack a window and leave, and someone sees you do it.

[Jeff-DSA]

Of course you could easily think of some mandatory device for all new cars that combines a CO2 sensor with a temperature sensor and a sensor that determines if the car is moving. The question though is if people would be willing to pay an extra amount of let's say $50 for a new car. My guess is that most people don't want to pay that amount for potentially saving someone else's baby (or dog).

$50 extra in a car with 3-5 year loan would amount to pennies a month.

[Ferrio]

Damn right... if this was a dog, the owner would be charged with animal cruelty and the SPCA would insure they would never own a pet again. Yet, people in this thread are fine with letting parents go scott-free for baking their 13-month-old in the back seat.

Dogs are usually a ton more vocal and visual when left in a car.

[demon]

Horrible mistake but I can see it happening to an otherwise responsible parent under extreme situations of stress or sleep deprivation. Who knows how many countless times it almost happens to a parent, and they run back to the car halfway after they get halfway down the sidewalk or something. In this case, unfortunately, it didn't. I don't see what purpose punishing her with the law would serve. She'll be punishing herself enough for the rest of her life.

[joelseph]

Dogs are usually a ton more vocal and visual when left in a car.

not to mention they are animals so humans tend to be more negligent towards them. Like throw them off balconies.

[joelseph]

Horrible mistake but I can see it happening to an otherwise responsible parent under extreme situations of stress or sleep deprivation. Who knows how many countless times it almost happens to a parent, and they run back to the car halfway after they get halfway down the sidewalk or something. In this case, unfortunately, it didn't. I don't see what purpose punishing her with the law would serve. She'll be punishing herself enough for the rest of her life.

Well said.

[winjet81]

Lol animal cruelty charges are almost non existent in america. Not sure what you are talking about. Unless you are running a dog fighting ring Mike Vick style you almost never get serious charges for killing animals. I do agree with your 2nd point though. I am not going to say what she should be sentenced to, I am sure if it was really an accident the rest of her life will be sentence enough.

Don't know what you're talking about re: animal cruelty charges. There's a whole website containing thousand of convictions here:

http://www.pet-abuse.com/pages/cruel...&search=search

[Keikaku]

Since people can't seem to be bothered to read the WaPo article:

David Diamond is picking at his breakfast at a Washington hotel, trying to explain. "Memory is a machine," he says, "and it is not flawless. Our conscious mind prioritizes things by importance, but on a cellular level, our memory does not. If you're capable of forgetting your cellphone, you are potentially capable of forgetting your child." Diamond is a professor of molecular physiology at the University of South Florida and a consultant to the veterans hospital in Tampa. He's here for a national science conference to give a speech about his research, which involves the intersection of emotion, stress and memory. What he's found is that under some circumstances, the most sophisticated part of our thought-processing center can be held hostage to a competing memory system, a primitive portion of the brain that is -- by a design as old as the dinosaur's -- inattentive, pigheaded, nonanalytical, stupid. Diamond is the memory expert with a lousy memory, the one who recently realized, while driving to the mall, that his infant granddaughter was asleep in the back of the car. He remembered only because his wife, sitting beside him, mentioned the baby. He understands what could have happened had he been alone with the child. Almost worse, he understands exactly why. The human brain, he says, is a magnificent but jury-rigged device in which newer and more sophisticated structures sit atop a junk heap of prototype brains still used by lower species. At the top of the device are the smartest and most nimble parts: the prefrontal cortex, which thinks and analyzes, and the hippocampus, which makes and holds on to our immediate memories. At the bottom is the basal ganglia, nearly identical to the brains of lizards, controlling voluntary but barely conscious actions. Diamond says that in situations involving familiar, routine motor skills, the human animal presses the basal ganglia into service as a sort of auxiliary autopilot. When our prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are planning our day on the way to work, the ignorant but efficient basal ganglia is operating the car; that's why you'll sometimes find yourself having driven from point A to point B without a clear recollection of the route you took, the turns you made or the scenery you saw. Ordinarily, says Diamond, this delegation of duty "works beautifully, like a symphony. But sometimes, it turns into the '1812 Overture.' The cannons take over and overwhelm." By experimentally exposing rats to the presence of cats, and then recording electrochemical changes in the rodents' brains, Diamond has found that stress -- either sudden or chronic -- can weaken the brain's higher-functioning centers, making them more susceptible to bullying from the basal ganglia. He's seen the same sort of thing play out in cases he's followed involving infant deaths in cars. "The quality of prior parental care seems to be irrelevant," he said. "The important factors that keep showing up involve a combination of stress, emotion, lack of sleep and change in routine, where the basal ganglia is trying to do what it's supposed to do, and the conscious mind is too weakened to resist. What happens is that the memory circuits in a vulnerable hippocampus literally get overwritten, like with a computer program. Unless the memory circuit is rebooted -- such as if the child cries, or, you know, if the wife mentions the child in the back -- it can entirely disappear." Diamond stops. "There is a case in Virginia where this is exactly what happened, the whole set of stress factors. I was consulted on it a couple of years ago. It was a woman named, ah . . ." He puts down his fork, searches the ceiling, the wall, the floor, then shakes his head. He's been stressing over his conference speech, he says, and his memory retrieval is shot. He can't summon the name.

[Dyno]

People who are saying they don't understand how this can happen REALLY need to read the Washington Post article (the author won the Pulitzer for it): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022701549.html

Quoting the article for a new page because it is excellent! Very illuminating, especially the section about how memory and the brain functions. Thanks for posting.

[h0pper]

I just don't get how you get out of your car and don't see your kid there. I mean...do people not look? Hell, I look just to check my car....can't imagine....

she must have been in a panic.

[Tangeroo]

Just to gauge the temperature here, I'd like to pose a hypothetical situation.

The woman decides she wants to adopt a baby after this. Do you think she should be allowed to? I'd like to hear opinions from both sides of the fence.

[SickBoy]

Such a sad situation. I can see the state of mind in which this would happen, although I'm not sure I've ever been to a point where I could make a mistake like that. Still, it must be pure torture.

Thirteen months is right around the time you are supposed to switch from rear-facing to front-facing (assuming the child is at least 20 pounds).

Most of the expert opinion I've seen is that you should rear-face your child for as long as possible.

EDIT: and regarding this:

If it was a dog left in the car it would of caused a bigger shitstorm from what i've seen in the past.

...I think the expectation is that when people leave their pet in the car they know they're doing it. I think most in this thread believe the story that the woman simply didn't know.

[Tabz]

I'm starting to believe in the movie "Idiocracy" the more news I hear everyday

[Pachterballs]

charges should be laid. Whats her fucking excuse. Terrible way to die. Baked to death..

[Loofy]

Horrible mistake but I can see it happening to an otherwise responsible parent under extreme situations of stress or sleep deprivation. Who knows how many countless times it almost happens to a parent, and they run back to the car halfway after they get halfway down the sidewalk or something. In this case, unfortunately, it didn't. I don't see what purpose punishing her with the law would serve. She'll be punishing herself enough for the rest of her life.

Sorry but lets change a few details around.

She was taking care of someone elses kid that she was baby sitting.

Still dont think she should be punished?

[MidnightScott]

Totally agree. I just don't understand how anybody can forget the have a small child in the car. It's your own child, for goodness sake. It seems straight out of a CSI episode. I'm not sure where I stand on punishing her though. Sure, she didn't mean to do it but...

Are you a parent? I don't think we can know what it's like unless we have kids, I certainly don't.

[SUPREME1]

Pretty outrageous they aren't charging the mom.

It was just a tragic mistake. She didn't leave the kid in the car on purpose to go have a drink or does some stupid shit. It was a colossal fuck up.


Fuck, feel so bad for her.

Poor kid. What a horrific way to go.

[Ferrio]

Sorry but lets change a few details around. She was talking care of someone elses kid that she was baby sitting. Still dont think she should be punished?

Interesting question. I'd bet she'd be tried for sure... but this is quite a difference.

1. Charges would be pressed from the other family. In this case she isn't going to charge herself.
2. Baby sitting is to get around the whole issue of being fatigued/too busy to properly take care of your child. The whole reason why this event happened in the first place. If a baby sitter took a job when they were unfit to.. that's negligance.

[Houston3000]

That's terrible. I can't imagine how horrible that would be to accidentally kill your child... especially over a simple spell of forgetfulness.

[Mudkips]

600+ people a year. Just because a mistake is a tragedy doesn't mean that it is negligent.

Doesn't it say 613 since 1991?

[demon]

Sorry but lets change a few details around. She was taking care of someone elses kid that she was baby sitting. Still dont think she should be punished?

Yes, because more than 'a few details' would be different in that situation.

[Hamplin]

Should get charged with manslaughter. This is pretty much a textbook definition of manslaughter.

[NinjaBoiX]

ITT: Horrendously tragic accident = premeditated and callous act of unbridled malice.

[SickBoy]

BTW, I'll repeat it. Still reading, but the Washington Post article linked elsewhere in the thread is great journalism.

[Loofy]

Yes, because more than 'a few details' would be different in that situation.

Yeah like if I shoot a kid the fact that he was mine or not would totally make a difference.
I agree with ferrio though. Theres probably other factors that Im not getting.

[Hamplin]

IRL: Horrendously tragic accident = Still manslaughter.

[Slayer-33]

Jesus H CHRIST.

[crazygambit]

I read a very sad, long form article about this a while back. It happens occasionally and the parents' lives are generally wrecked, sometimes with legal penalties. Edit: Here it is http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022701549.html Just awful. No legal penalty is as bad as the guilt.

Amazing read, thanks. Now I understand how you can forget a child in a car for the whole day. You think he's taken care of and completely put it out of your mind.

It's really inexcusable that there's an alarm to warn you you left your lights on, but nothing to tell you if you forgot your child on the seat of the car.