Sunday, June 01, 2008

Neglect? Negligence? Or A Crime?

A mom who went grocery shopping while leaving her 7-week-old baby in a hot car with windows rolled up for 45 minutes was booked Saturday night on one count of child abuse, Phoenix police said. "The mother didn't seem concerned at all," said Erik Estrada, a witness. "She wasn't crying." Police said they are still trying to determine why Nichols left her daughter in the car. Nichols has two other children, ages 2 and 7, officers said. Sources told CBS 5 News she has been in trouble before for child neglect.

I wonder how many of these stories we will hear again this summer... child left in hot car, dog left in hot car, child drowns in pool, etc. We are seeing too many of these stories. It is starting to look like a pattern to me. It is starting to look purposeful. It is starting to look like copycat crimes that have a 50/50 chance of the perpetrators finding a way to murder their kids or kill their pets and get away with it.

I don't know about this specific case, because everyone should be presumed to be innocent until proven guilty... but, I'm suspecting something evil in many of these cases, where it is not just simply that people are in a rush and forgetting they left a child or pet unsupervised... that this kind of thing is purposeful and criminal in nature. I'm starting to believe that in most of these cases these parents and pet owners are mentally deranged in some way, and should be locked up or permanently kept away from kids and pets.

What are your thoughts?

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