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From my experience in keeping soft drink inside cars in Florida, I can tell you that the trunk is nothing compared to the actual car itself. So if it was a choice between the trunk and the car in 90 degree weather, with no AC, I’d pick the trunk anyday: often, after several hours in the 90+ sun, my Mountain Dew cans are still drinkably cool, whereas in the passenger exclosure they’d be as hot as a cup of tea in the sun and almost as hot in the shade. But better of course to bring your children with you.
ETA: I’d never do that to a child, anyway, in that sort of weather, and even if it were a reasonable temperature, I wouldn’t walk away. But playing or trying to find the release, or both, it’s all good from there 
Yeah, if it was a game, the girls suck at it if they didn’t in fact use the trunk release. The game is “Find the release hatch”, so I guess they lost.
None of us knows the circumstances, but I’d bet that Muloonthief is pretty close. I don’t see any serious potential for child endagerment here, just a bunch of self important hypocrites making a mountain out of a molehill. While “locking kids in a car trunk” sounds dramatic, this was almost surely a simple game and no more dangerous than many other children’s antics. I can recall my kids begging me to watch the swim across the pool for the first time, or climb a tree, or ride their bike w/ no hands and dozens of other “daring” feats, it’s just part of growing up.
Heck, I’ve kept little girls locked in my trunk for hours on hot days and trust me, they still have plenty of fight left in them.
Well, according to this article referenced above, it was the prosecutor who claimed the girls said they’d played this game before, while the defense was claiming this was the first time. From the articles, I get the impression the dad didn’t realize anything was wrong until he got pulled over by police and arrested, at which point he couldn’t coach the girls what to say, since they were sent to relatives until their mother showed up.
Yeah, that’s kindof what I was driving at, and why I closed with saying something sounded fishy about the story. I can’t imagine anybody waiting 5 full minutes to call the police if they saw someone lock little girls in a trunk and then walk away. Didn’t happen. And if it did, then he’s a HUGE idiot and not a very good citizen, at that.
Oh, so are you saying that the witness may be wrong about the ammount of time? That it is really strange for him to have just sat there doing nothing?
My sentiments as well. It’s a waste of resources.
After reading the OP, I was going to post that the DA and police were overreacting, but I’ve had some second thoughts.
I’m not very far from where this took place. I was working around the house on Sunday, and had to go up into my attic to pull some wires. After five minutes up there, I came down soaked and short of breath, to the extent that the upstairs (in the 80s) felt like a cool breeze.
If the trunk was anything like that, add to that there were *two *children in the trunk, and the possibility of claustrophobia. If either had panicked, and if the father had walked away, that might have ended more traumatically, although I doubt that they were in any serious danger.
I think that the father acted foolishly, but with no bad intent. I wouldn’t fault the DA for throwing out the charges if investigation shows that, but I also don’t fault them for being cautious - especially in light of recent cases of child abuse not acted on by child welfare agencies.
On the one hand, it doesn’t appear that the girls were in any real danger, especially if the dad is right about them knowing where the emergency release is. On the other, encouraging kids to think of a car trunk as a place to play is a bad idea, IMO. It’s not a far stretch to think they might get it in their heads to try it in another car, where they may not know how to get out.
That’s what I was starting to come around to as well. “This is a game only to be played in our car, with me nearby” doesn’t always get heard.
I’d like to make few points. The first being that the article said the girls were fascinated by the glow in the dark release hatch and that was why they wanted to be in the trunk. This to me says that if at any point the girls wanted to get out of the trunk, they not only knew exactly where the release was (glow in the dark and all), but knew what it was for and could easily have gotten out.
The second being that the girls were nine and eleven years old. People who are freaking out, because dad left the kids alone in the car for a maximum of five minutes are being silly. Eleven is plenty ol enough to make a rational decision to get out of the trunk if it was getting to hot. So is nine in IMO. Would the witness have call 911 if the kids had been left sittting up front, where, I am positive, it was much hotter then in the trunk? I doubt it.
This whole thing is ridiculous and a waste of govenrment resources.
That is correct, yes. He apparently sat there doing nothing the entire time the girls were “in danger”, having been locked in a trunk and abandoned, for a length of time he would’ve been unable to predict, which he later claims was 5 full minutes. Five full minutes is actually quite a long time, especially when you’re just sitting there waiting for something to happen. And especially when you think young children’s lives are in danger.
And he didn’t wait 5 full minutes, then call police because the father still wasn’t back and now he felt enough time had elapsed to be concerned. No, he admits that he didn’t phone 911 until after the father had returned, opened the trunk, let the girls pose for some pictures for their uncle, piled the family in the car and drove off safe and sound. Does that sound like an emergency to you?
The last part of the scenario may have taken 5 minutes, but I don’t believe for a moment that the girls were in that trunk unattended for 5 minutes, or this joker would’ve already been on the horn to 911 by the time the father came back.
I think letting them know how it works under his supervision is the responsible way to go. I was one of those kids that had to know how something worked. I tried stuff on my own when the parents didn’t give me an answer. A tragedy would be if the kids had tried this by themselves, and roasted in the trunk.
Wait he didn’t stay there?
What is the point of putting kids in the trunk if there is a release latch? Agreed that this is stupid, unless you disable the latch first.
At least he wasn’t as willfully endangering as this guy:
(From Countdown on 7/17/07)
“Number one, Luis Miguel Gomez of Spain, who recently lost custody of his ten year old son when his ex-wife complained to a judge that he was an unfit father. How did she know he was an unfit father? She had photographic proof. She saw this picture in her local newspaper of her ex husband and her son running with the bulls in Pamplona.”
“Have you ever heard of camping, pops?”
“Or trunk hide-and-seek.”
Just kidding. I made that last part up.