Another fucking dead baby in the parking lot:

[Philster]

*Originally posted by LauraLittlePony *
**But Philster, if they could detect a baby’s breathing? I mean, that would be a pretty sensitive motion sensor. Of course I know little about motion sensors.

**

Well, trying to keep one step ahead of idiots who lock babies in cars for extended periods of time is not a perfect science, but motion sensors are computers and can detect motion or heat and sample the area and make conclusions about what is there thousands of times per second. The profile of a baby - the heat signature…breath…ANY movement - could be set up to trigger an alarm, while the scanning of the area could ignore bugs and other potential false alarms.

Again, staying ahead of dumbasses is not easy, even with our technology. It is do-able. Some idiots will find ways to defeat the system, and then we can pit them and be double mad about it.

Anger…sadness…anger…

[Jurhael]

“Im sick and tired of the anti-God zealots who think an anti-God society would be better. Equal maybe, but you cant argue better.”

And I’m sick and tired of GOD zealots who think that a GOD society would be better. If I had to choose, I’d go with the anti-God ones as I like making choices.

OT: People who do things like this should be locked in cars in 108 degree weather.

[Teelo]

Curious, what is the best way to break a car window, in case the need be?

Oh and gum you brought a tear to my eye with that apology. Good show indeed.

[Ms2001]

*Originally posted by Teelo *
Curious, what is the best way to break a car window, in case the need be?

I’d use a sledgehammer. According to some evening news bloopers I’ve seen, a baseball bat or golf club is more likely to bounce off and hit you in the face.

[Teelo]

Heh, okay!

But seriously, lets say you’re walking by a car and glance over at a child suffering from heat stroke?

No keys, guns, sledges or jaws of life.
What do you do to break open that window?!

[Darth_Nader]

A big heavy chunk of metal. Something like the jack from your own car… If you have time, wrap yer hands up in a t-shirt or something. Carefully hit the window that’s most far away from said child-- you can unlock doors from there.

Not like I’ve been thinking about this, or anything.

[Booker57]

If the car window is down far enough to get a tee-shirt wrapped hand around the glass, just pull.

Trust me on this one.

Where is the follow up in most of these storys? Baby dies, adult type person goes to trial, then what? If the person was found guilty of child endangerment, would sterelization be a punnishment? Never being able to bring another life in to the world that they could forget?

[TeaElle]

saramamlana - Munchausens by Proxy usually manifests itself in illnesses, injuries or death that can’t be attributed to the wrongdoing of the parent. It seems odd that someone would think that they’d get the sympathetic attention that MbP sufferers crave after they intentionally killed their child in a manner which left no question as to their culpability.

As for breaking car windows, I’ve understood that golf clubs are particularly good for that purpose. Tire irons and jack handles also seem to work. However, if you’ve got none of the above available, 911 works well. Last summer, I was a witness when a baby was seen in the backseat of a car parked at a grocery store. It was evening, but it was still very warm, and of course, it was a baby all alone. A woman called 911 on her cell phone and police arrived less than two minutes after she hung up, with paramedics only moments behind.

Being nosy, I waited to see what happened when the slacker parents returned to the car. The mother came out and an officer walked up to her and asked if it was her car, when she replied in the affirmative, an officer who had walked up behind her was at the ready and slapped the cuffs on the dumb bitch.

*Originally posted by Bad News Baboon *
IThey had an article that car manufacturers have a device that will begin to show up on cars around '04. It is a motion detector. The way it works (again, IIRC) if the car is not in motion and gets to a certain temp, the motion sensor kicks in. It is, apparently, highly sensitive and can sense the motion from a baby breathing. The alarm is a very highpitched S.O.S. sound and then a continuous honk, S.O.S, etc.

Better idea – hook this in to one of those OnStar systems or something that can alert authorities. If it really is capable of determining that it’s a child or a pet in the car, why not? That way there’d be no question that help would be on the scene ASAP, instead of relying on the interest/kindness of passersby.

[Uncommon_Sense]

There are a couple of things that would break a window. You could kick the glass out of the window furthest from the child (you`ll probably end up hurting yourself). Or, you could take your own keys and throw them at the window as hard as you can (If you have a large key-wad). If you get the glass to even crack a little (it usually just explodes) then you can finish it off with your heel.

[Windwalker]

First of all, I agree that the woman was irresponsible, careless, wreckless, and an unfit parent. This particular case looks like it may even be murder, and should be investigated as such.

However…

[puts on flame-retardant suit]

In other cases, isn’t there such a thing as an honest mistake? I am not a parent, so if you want to disqualify me with that, there it is. But anyway, there are genuinely times when people have huge lapses in memory or judgment, espcially if they are distracted, overworked, busy, overstressed, etc. Sometimes, one of these lapses may lead to the death of their child… Is it still right to call for their head then?

Say some woman usually has a daily schedule of dropping off three kids, one to elementary school, one to pre-school, and the last one to day-care, and then she goes to work. Say she drops off the first two, then receives a phone call while driving. Meanwhile, the kid in the backseat has fallen asleep. OH SHIT! SOMEONE ROBBED OUR OFFICE LAST NIGHT. THE FILES YOU HAVE BEEN WORKING ON FOR THE PAST TWO MONTHS ON THE COMPUTER ARE GONE. The woman zooms to work and rushes out of the car without looking back, worrying about what is going on with her work, forgetting about her little toddler in the backseat. However, in the course of a normal day, she would have made one more stop, and THEN forgotten about the kid for the rest of the day until it was time to pick them up. So this kid, forgotten because mommy had a crisis at work and momentarily lost track of who she had dropped off (or not dropped off), dies during the day due to heat exposure…

Is the woman at fault? Surely. Is this criminal? I would sincerely hope not.

I am not saying that this fictional story applies to the current case; the woman in this case is looking very suspicious. But I can envision some cases where people make honest mistakes that lead to deadly consequences. In these cases, I would think that these consequences would be more than enough punishment to last a lifetime.

Am I the only one here of this opinion?

[kung_fu_lola]

*Originally posted by Cajo *
Forgetting to drop your baby at day care and leaving them in the car all day while you work is one (godawful) thing. This “mother” seemed to forget she had a child at all. Eight hours and she never thought about feeding, changing or holding her two-month child? Did she think the Nanny Fairy had come to town?

That is EXACTLY what I was thinking.
This woman wasn’t a parent. She didn’t obviously have a parent mentality. She was just a breeder. And of course her offspring pays for her carelessness. :mad:

[zuma]

I have a question… I’ve long ago gotten over the shock of these daily summertime rituals of parents “forgetting” their kids in cars.

I don’t EVER remember hearing about these incidents until recently. I remember in the late 80s or so I’d hear stories about people forgetting their dogs in their cars, and public service spots warning about high heat in vehicles. You’d think if baby-frying was NOT intentional, it would have been happening since the 40s or so. Did the news media just not catch on to this story until recently, or is it indeed a new phenomenon?

Basically, we’re left with one of three possibilities:

1. Children have been left in cars for over half a century and the news media is only now reporting it

2. Parents have become unbelievably more stupid within a generation, stupid enough to let their babies die in hot cars

3. Parents have found a new way to murder their children

[Windwalker]

*Originally posted by zuma *
**I have a question… I’ve long ago gotten over the shock of these daily summertime rituals of parents “forgetting” their kids in cars.

I don’t EVER remember hearing about these incidents until recently. I remember in the late 80s or so I’d hear stories about people forgetting their dogs in their cars, and public service spots warning about high heat in vehicles. You’d think if baby-frying was NOT intentional, it would have been happening since the 40s or so. Did the news media just not catch on to this story until recently, or is it indeed a new phenomenon?

Basically, we’re left with one of three possibilities:

1. Children have been left in cars for over half a century and the news media is only now reporting it

2. Parents have become unbelievably more stupid within a generation, stupid enough to let their babies die in hot cars

3. Parents have found a new way to murder their children **

I think it has more to do with the rise of two-income families, which means both parents are out of the house more often, which means more kids riding in cars, which means more kids dying in cars. Also, the rise of “supermom”, who has to take kids to school/soccer practice/band camp as well as go to work as well as shop for groceries and prepare dinner. Not that this in any way excuses leaving your kid out to die in your car, but if a care-giver is out and about doing tons of shit every day with their child, then one can expect more accidents such as these (i.e. if stupidity/carelessness rate remains the same, more chances to be stupid/careless means more incidents will occur).

And I suspect that as more of these incidents occur, the easier it is to disguise murder of one’s child as an accidental leaving-in-car-death. So perhaps there is an additional trend at work here.

[Jaade]

*Originally posted by Windwalker *
**First of all, I agree that the woman was irresponsible, careless, wreckless, and an unfit parent. This particular case looks like it may even be murder, and should be investigated as such.

However…

[puts on flame-retardant suit]

In other cases, isn’t there such a thing as an honest mistake? I am not a parent, so if you want to disqualify me with that, there it is. But anyway, there are genuinely times when people have huge lapses in memory or judgment, espcially if they are distracted, overworked, busy, overstressed, etc. Sometimes, one of these lapses may lead to the death of their child… Is it still right to call for their head then?

Say some woman usually has a daily schedule of dropping off three kids, one to elementary school, one to pre-school, and the last one to day-care, and then she goes to work. Say she drops off the first two, then receives a phone call while driving. Meanwhile, the kid in the backseat has fallen asleep. OH SHIT! SOMEONE ROBBED OUR OFFICE LAST NIGHT. THE FILES YOU HAVE BEEN WORKING ON FOR THE PAST TWO MONTHS ON THE COMPUTER ARE GONE. The woman zooms to work and rushes out of the car without looking back, worrying about what is going on with her work, forgetting about her little toddler in the backseat. However, in the course of a normal day, she would have made one more stop, and THEN forgotten about the kid for the rest of the day until it was time to pick them up. So this kid, forgotten because mommy had a crisis at work and momentarily lost track of who she had dropped off (or not dropped off), dies during the day due to heat exposure…

Is the woman at fault? Surely. Is this criminal? I would sincerely hope not.

I am not saying that this fictional story applies to the current case; the woman in this case is looking very suspicious. But I can envision some cases where people make honest mistakes that lead to deadly consequences. In these cases, I would think that these consequences would be more than enough punishment to last a lifetime.

Am I the only one here of this opinion? **

I dunno, I have 4 kids…I’ve never forgotten one of them. Not at the grocery store, the mall, the GS trip to Seattle where we walked all over the place (and I was responsible for 8 other girls then as well!) Not at Six Flags, not at a waterpark…I’ve never left them in the movie theater by accident. I have left them in the car for 2 minutes, but if I am going to do something where I will be gone for a longer period of time than that, they come inside or stay at home.

I just can’t imagine FORGETTING your child. I think about my kids while I’m at work, wondering what they are doing. My oldest calls me when she gets home from school, if she calls 5 minutes late, I’m already worried.

Maybe it’s just me…I don’t think I’ve ever gone several hours without at least wondering what my kids are doing at that moment, which would make it hard for me to leave them in a car for hours. I have to think at some point, a light would go on.

And…at least 2 of my children snore, loudly when they sleep. So, even sleeping, they aren’t forgotten.

~J

[Boo_Boo_Foo]

*Originally posted by tlw *
**Last summer, I was a witness when a baby was seen in the backseat of a car parked at a grocery store. It was evening, but it was still very warm, and of course, it was a baby all alone. A woman called 911 on her cell phone and police arrived less than two minutes after she hung up, with paramedics only moments behind.

Being nosy, I waited to see what happened when the slacker parents returned to the car. The mother came out and an officer walked up to her and asked if it was her car, when she replied in the affirmative, an officer who had walked up behind her was at the ready and slapped the cuffs on the dumb bitch.**

Interesting story there TLW. Just as a matter of curiosity, how long would you say that the mother had spent inside the grocery store? Certainly, she must have been in there long enough for the chances of a concerned passerby to make the decision to risk being seen as a “nosy parker” and make the important 911 phone call.

And paramedics showed up as well in an Ambulance? Wow. Nice to see that quick responses can still take place.

[kambuckta]

*Originally posted by Cajo *
**Forgetting to drop your baby at day care and leaving them in the car all day while you work is one (godawful) thing. This “mother” seemed to forget she had a child at all. Eight hours and she never thought about feeding, changing or holding her two-month child? Did she think the Nanny Fairy had come to town?

This smells. Bad. **

I’m not in any way presuming to excuse this woman if her actions are found to be culpable, but ‘forgetfulness’ is a fairly common trait with new mothers.

My second kid was about 3 weeks old, and I was about to head out shopping. I strapped the older kid into her toddler seat, grabbed my bag, and proceeded to drive down the road towards the shopping centre. Something didn’t seem quite right, and about five minutes from home, I realised to my horror that I had totally forgotten about wee Jem asleep in his crib.

Sure, it wasn’t hours, and sure, he was home in bed and not in a hot car. But having experienced such forgetfulness myself, I wonder if some of these women really DO, quite innocently just forget that they have a young baby?