The kids are 11 and 12 years old, and had apparently asked if they could ride in the trunk, for fun.
According to a local news report on the TV tonight, a member of the public saw the kids getting into the trunk, became concerned, and called police. The cops found the car a bit later in a parking lot. The parents were in a store, and the kids were still inside.
Something that the linked news story doesn’t mention is that the car apparently has a drop-down armrest in the rear seat that allows light and air to enter the trunk from the cabin.
The parents have been charged with child endangerment and a few other offences.
So, whaddayathink?
Are these parents just guilty of being a bit dumb? Should the cops and the prosecuters lighten up? Or is this worthy of child abuse charges.
And what about the person who called the cops in the first place–concerned citizen or nosey parker?
mhendo: I would say the citizen did the right thing. After all, seeing kids climb into a trunk is not a usual thing.
OTOH, the prosecutor and cops are dumbshits. If the kids asked to ride in the trunk and the parents let them, I don’t see where it’s society’s business. Of course, the prosecutor probably sees a chance to make a few bucks off the parents.
This is worthy of some kind of charge. What if someone had rearended the car? Hard? What if the trunk had crunched in? Maybe it was highly unlikely, but the chance was still there. What they did was just increasing the odds for something bad to happen to the kids.
Is there a penalty specifically for the criminally stupid?
I would have called the cops, too. That person had no idea of what was going on, of why the kids were getting into the trunk. It was unknown how dangerous the situation may have been for them.
I definitely think calling the cops was the right thing to do. No way of knowing what the hell they were up to.
I think the parents should face some consequences, since that was unbelievably stupid. Encouraging kids to see the trunk of a car as a place to play is just a bad idea no matter how you slice it.
In my humble opinion, “reckless endangerment” sounds like a reasonable call. Dangerous on the road, and leaving them in an enclosed, unventilated area while they went into the shop was plain stupid.
Still the judge’s order that they have no unsupervised contact with their 12-year-old son until the trial is likely to do more harm than anything else. Moronic.
Also, based on what information is available, I think that jail time for the parents is unwarranted and likely to be harmful. A considerable fine wouldn’t hurt, though.
(Anecdotally, I’ve ridden in the trunk as a child. For fun. No biggee.)
I just realized that i posted my OP without giving my own take on the issue, but it seems that most people are pretty close to my views on the subject:
The parents were idiots
They probably don’t deserve to be found guilty of something as serious as child abuse (and i’m sure they’ve learned their lesson!)
In the absence of other information, the person who called the cops did the right thing.
All other things aside, the risks of riding unrestrained in a car trunk are pretty fucking great, and the parents were idiots for not considering that. As one cop said on the news tonight, riding without a seatbelt is illegal, and he’s never seen a car with belts fitted in the trunk.
In Illinois that would be in violation of the child restraint law, which requires them sitting down and buckles in.
OTOH, while twenty miles sounds a bit much, a block could be fun. It’s important for parents to prepare their children for adulthood and maybe these kids wanted to grow up to be Mafiosi.
Trunks are not engineered to carry passengers safely. The adults were endangering the children by allowing them to occupy that space in a moving vehicle. This was more than stupid, it was both illegal and wrong.
I agree that some sort of charges should be filed, but that jail time seems pretty silly, as does the decision not to allow unsupervised contact with the kid.
On a tangential note, i wonder how anyone would feel, standing in court and hearing your own lawyer say:
The only thing that pisses me off about the story is the way it goes into a whole spiel about the woman’s work as a den mother and member of the PTA, and the guy’s involvement in kids’ sports, blah, blah, blah, blah. Who gives a fuck? Judge the case on its merits.
Oh, and after reading the article, I have to say that the FRIEND’s parents are equally stupid for thinking this was not a big deal. If it were my kid that had been stuffed in somebody’s trunk, I’d be seriously rethinking my kid’s relationship with that family.
Well now, here I have to disagree with you. Would you honestly say “Who gives a fuck” if the dad was a pimp and the mom was a crack ho? It’s called character credibility.
Stupid idea. Worthy of jail time? I don’t think so.
Don’t mean to hijack, but I think I should explain the slightly derisive tone I used, there: InsideBaltimore.com is dependent on Javascript for layout-- without javascript enabled, the page renders with the advertising sidebar occupying the full width of the screen, and places the story underneath that, so you have to scroll through three screenfuls of wank to get to the content. At first, I thought that it was intentional, and that the page rendered the same way for everyone, and not just for those of us who despise javascript. :0
Nope, a station wagon’s back end is provided with proper reinforcement to resist crushing in the event of an accident. Laws may now exist prohibiting pasenger occupation of that area due to lack of seatbelts but it is still many times safer than being in a trunk. The ability to escape after a collision is reason enough by itself.
Eh. The biggest thing, in my eye, to be concerned about is the fact that they left 'em in their for twenty miles. I can imagine driving a couple blocks, just for novelty’s sake, but anything more than that is an unreasonable risk, in my book.
