Thursday, March 13, 2008

Needed Action or Overreaction?

I read the following story yesterday with such a mixture of disdain and frustration... I vacillated back and forth between understanding the police's concern and feeling that this poor mother was doing the wrong thing but perhaps at the right time.

Check out the article below and let me know your thoughts - I think this is an important issue to weigh in on. I realize leaving a child unattended in a car is not a good thing. Buuuut I also remember countless trips to the grocery store where I was left in the car in our local Dahl's Foodstore parking lot to entertain myself while my mom ran inside. I was probably older than the girl here but still... Of course, it is against the law to leave your child "unattended" in a vehicle, but what IS "unattended"? How far away must you get? How long should you be gone? What about (as in this case) when the weather is bad and getting the child out could do more harm than good?

I'm truly interested in everyone's responses:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/12/mom.on.trial.ap/index.html

5 comments:

Our Family said...

It is just absured!! The police force should be expected to use just as much common sense as the rest of us! The child was not out of site! Ughhh! Seriously I hope that someone sees the irrationality of it all. I understand what the law is to prevent and I support that, but let's use our heads people!

Anonymous said...

I agree it is going way too far to arrest her over this. If the car was right by her this should not even be an issue. People do the same thing when you pump gas, I don't take Boyd out of the car to do that so should they arrest me for that??

Anonymous said...

I leave the girls in the locked car a lot- usually only if I'm running in to pay for gas. One of my daughters' is handicap, she can't walk very fast and she weighs around 40 lbs. I can't let go of her in the store to get out my money because she has seizures that make her fall down. I think it's much safer for her to be in the car for two seconds alone. The article talks about all of the dangers that can happen, but they don't give specifics. The car is locked, I am watching it at all times, my children are buckled in and I have the only set of keys. What exactly can happen- seriously.

Anonymous said...

I see both sides; I do believe the police are being too harsh on her because essentially the car was not completley "unattended", but then again, she was also responsible for attending to the other two girls at the same time so her focus was not 100% on the car...i.e taking photos etc.. However I can see why they are proceeding because they have to have the same standards for everyone...zero tolerance. I remember as well being left in the car as a youngster; but we live in a different time now, a very different time, and if I were in the same situation as this Chicago mother, I would have designated another time to go donate the money.

Unknown said...

Holy crap...I totally want to bitch slap that cop. If I were the husband, then I'm 100% confident I'd be under arrest for kicking the shit out of an idiot! (can you tell I'm upset after reading that article?) I'm probably going to get in trouble for stating this, but I remember picking up dog poop in the yard while my daughter took a nap inside. Having said that, I did have a video monitor on my hip, but still. WTF? Get me the name of that officer and they will never see the end of the porno e-mails and slutty magazine subscriptions. (maybe I'll even go as far as signing them up for gay weekly)