GA - Suspicion over heat death of Cooper, 22 mo., Cobb County, June 2014, #1

[tlcya]

here is raw video of the AA witness speaking at the scene

http://www.wsbtv.com/videos/news/raw-sound-witness-describes-fathers-reaction-to/vCfQ4N/

 

[Mystymiss]

This is why parents get away with things. All you have to do is say it was a mistake.

I made a mistake and forgot the baby was in the car. I made a mistake and left my prescription with the cover off on the end table. Oh I made a mistake and didn't buckle my toddler into the car seat because we were just going to the store (but its
really close only 3min away)how was I to know that someone was going to hit my car! oh I made a mistake I just ran into Walmart to return something I bought a couple of days ago. yeah I left my two toddlers in the car cause I didn't want to wake them, besides I made sure the doors were locked and a window was rolled down an inch so no one would take them. how was I to know the car would get so hot!!

 

[tlcya]

yes, the second child who made it to daycare is confusing to me. Same daycare? Where was that child seated in the car?

Beginning to see why this seems to LE to be a lot more complicated than a simple whoopsy.

 

[Tawny]

DEFINITELY want to know if the children attend the same daycare.

 

[Flutterby80]

This is why parents get away with things. All you have to do is say it was a mistake.

I made a mistake and forgot the baby was in the car. I made a mistake and left my prescription with the cover off on the end table. Oh I made a mistake and didn't buckle my toddler into the car seat because we were just going to the store (but its
really close only 3min away)how was I to know that someone was going to hit my car! oh I made a mistake I just ran into Walmart to return something I bought a couple of days ago. yeah I left my two toddlers in the car cause I didn't want to wake them, besides I made sure the doors were locked and a window was rolled down an inch so no one would take them. how was I to know the car would get so hot!!

These are different things. Intentionally risking harm by knowingly leaving babies alone in the car is not the same as forgetting the baby is there in the first place. Same possible outcome, the difference is intent.

People make mistakes. They screw up priorities. They make bad decisions. I'm not even saying there shouldn't be legal ramifications. I'm just saying that I think the punishment should fit the crime, and that intent makes the difference.

 

[JeannaT]

yes, the second child who made it to daycare is confusing to me. Same daycare? Where was that child seated in the car?

Beginning to see why this seems to LE to be a lot more complicated than a simple whoopsy.

I wonder if it was his habit to take each child in separately - for whatever reason? If the other child was a baby it would be easy to see why you couldn't manage a baby, 2 diaper bags and a toddler easily at one time and might want to break that up into two trips to the car. I'm just really interested to see how this will play out with this investigation.

 

[newone]

this is all very very strange reporting.....why wasn't it apparent from onset that this couple had two kids....

 

[Tawny]

These are different things. Intentionally risking harm by knowingly leaving babies alone in the car is not the same as forgetting the baby is there in the first place. Same possible outcome, the difference is intent.

People make mistakes. They screw up priorities. They make bad decisions. I'm not even saying there shouldn't be legal ramifications. I'm just saying that I think the punishment should fit the crime, and that intent makes the difference.

I agree. Intent is everything. That's why there are differences between Murder and, say, Negligent Homicide.

 

[georgiagirl]

He worked at the Home Depot corporate office.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[*LD*]

That has to be just terrible reporting.

 

[Chewy]

This is why parents get away with things. All you have to do is say it was a mistake.

I made a mistake and forgot the baby was in the car. I made a mistake and left my prescription with the cover off on the end table. Oh I made a mistake and didn't buckle my toddler into the car seat because we were just going to the store (but its
really close only 3min away)how was I to know that someone was going to hit my car! oh I made a mistake I just ran into Walmart to return something I bought a couple of days ago. yeah I left my two toddlers in the car cause I didn't want to wake them, besides I made sure the doors were locked and a window was rolled down an inch so no one would take them. how was I to know the car would get so hot!!

Well see I'm pretty cynical about not holding people responsible because all I can think of is Casey Anthony getting off because she knew how to create "reasonable doubt." What's funny is that when a spouse kills their spouse and thinks they can get off on reasonable doubt they generally don't succeed.

But people feel so guilty about punishing a parent because they feel they have "suffered enough!"

In my life experience with a 20 year old 18 year old already out of the house I watched tons of parents who didn't give a damn about their kids on a day to day basis. If their kid died they would be crying to the hills. But on a day to day basis they didn't take care of their kids properly at all. Risky situations that would blow your mind.

One of my friends stayed with me for a time in my tiny two bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I'm talking so small you could throw a tennis ball from the front door and hit the back of the bedrooms. And I came home once to find out from downstairs neighbor that her 5 year old and my 3 year old were found on the fire escape outside his second floor window because they climbed out the window from the fourth floor and down the fire escape while she "only left them for a minute to have a cigarette in the kitchen."

Another time I went to visit my sister and as we left the "girls party" out at a restaurant we found out that the police were at the house because my four year old had walked out the front door while her husband was babysitting him and fixing the car. He decided to take it for a test drive around the neighborhood and left him home with my other son who was 8 years old playing video games. My 8 year old is the one who found him. So this guy was 'soooo devastated and afraid when he came home" that he sent the 8 year old wandering around out in a neighborhood we'd only been to twice, filled with cul de sacs off major highways. My 8 year old found him. Nice going right.

I don't believe parents who say they "only left them for a minute" and it resulted in death. It's an exaggerated excuse.

As someone else pointed out before, we only hear about the ones that die, but I bet these people did this before. I bet in all of the stories it wasn't some RARE incident. I bet the parents that left their kids in the car were busy texting on their phone while driving anyway. And what's ridiculous IMO is that if they got into an accident while TEXTING they would be prosecuted.

If they were "texting" they didn't "Intend" to kill their kid either. So what's the difference? And the problem with making excuses for negligence that results in the death of a child is that it sets up a precedent that creates the possibility of someone deliberately doing this and pretending "they just forgot." As someone said before, how would you really know if they did or not?

 

[*LD*]

here is raw video of the AA witness speaking at the scene

http://www.wsbtv.com/videos/news/raw-sound-witness-describes-fathers-reaction-to/vCfQ4N/

THAT is the witness I was referencing! Man...now I see why it didn't make sense at the time.

"I hope it's not the obvious. I hope he didn't do anything to harm the child"

At the time, I was confused because it was early and I assumed this was another tragic accident.

 

[tlcya]

“A distraught man pulled a 22-month-old out of the back seat and attempted to administer first aid,” said Sgt. Dana Pierce with Cobb County police, who said officers responded within minutes to a 911 call from the Akers Mill Square strip mall off of Akers Mill Road. The names of the father and child, and the child’s gender,

http://mdjonline.com/view/full_stor...k-seat-of-car?instance=lead_story_left_column

Sgt Pierce was the person who is quoted on the scene as saying that the father dropped one child off at daycare but for whatever reason not the second.

I would say that is not bad reporting. If that turns to be not the case I would think the sgt was operating under some misinformation when he stated it.

 

[ArianeEmory]

RBBM.

That would work in cases of lazy mothers who purposely leave babies in the car while they shop or do whatever. That doesn't work in the case of a baby who is accidentally left in the car - because they can't remember they did it. In some cases, parents actually have no idea the baby is IN the car since their spouse put the baby in there and they have an understanding of a rotating responsibility of dropping the baby off at daycare. I've seen cases where during the flurry of action with both parents leaving for work, the baby is in placed in the car without the parent's knowledge.

When we were kids, if you had a baby in the car, it was in the front seat where you could see it. No one could "forget" the baby right there in the front seat. In the back seat, you can't see it when you get out of the car. Additionally, when and where I grew up there were virtually no families where both the husband and wife worked and used day care every day, and also shared the responsibility for who had the baby. So the chances of forgetting because it wasn't routine habit to have the baby didn't exist all that much.

I have an invention that would work. ;D You could put a fob on the car seat that would not allow you to lock the car if there was weight in the car seat. You go to "boop" the car locked and it won't boop. You would have to MANUALLY lock the car by depressing the locking mechanism closest the car seat. That would end this tragic horror. Virtually no one forgets to lock their car - that's something you do every single time so it's rote habit - and if you had to open the car door nearest the baby, you'd see the baby.

I think I've seen this kind of idea come up before, but there was speculation that any company who sold such a device would face huge liabilities in the face of any failure, no matter what the cause.

Like you, I recognize that the brain is dropping the information that the kid's even in the car because the parent's brain is so distracted with something else (typically being at work), and therefore fear of consequences doesn't even come into play. So I'm also interested in technical solutions.

Alternatively, people can mutter about how people should focus more on what really matters and so on, but the fact of the matter is most households with kids cannot operate with only one breadwinner, and that's been true for a long time.

I've always had an extremely good memory and ability to multitask, but as I've gotten a little older I'm starting to lose that in a scary, distracted, leave-the-oven-on kind of way that I never had before...especially as my career responsibilities and stress levels have skyrocketed.

(Note: my opinion that the human brain is fallible, just like all our other organs, doesn't represent my opinion on this specific parent's level of intent.)

 

[Chewy]

I'm truly curious, Chewy and don't want to be insulting.

What would you say to someone else who told that story you just told? Would you be empathetic to the other for going out on a girls night out and leaving her children with a man she knew quite well, who obviously wasn't capable of taking care of children? Would you judge her harshly?

I can say, I've never left my children with someone who thought it was okay to leave a 4 year old in the house in the care of an 8 year old, and then send the 8 year old into the dark looking for the missing preschooler.

I would blame myself for that oversight.

The man is a PHD in Biology. I was shocked that he'd do something so stupid. And I wouldn't blame the "woman who left him" unless he was some idiotic crack head or something. But no I had no sympathy for HIM whatsoever. At first I was feeling very bad for him. But then when we finally got home and I found that my son had been walking barefoot through the entire neighborhood and his feet were scratched and filthy, but her husband didn't even bother to wipe his feet off with a washcloth, my sympathy waned immediately.

Why would you try to make it MY fault that a grown adult left them home alone to take his car for a drive around the block? That's some weird thinking there IMO.

My point is that intelligent people do stupid things all the time. Throwing sympathy at them doesn't do anything for the actual victim in the case.

 

[JeannaT]

I had deleted my post, Chewy after I wrote it.

I really don't have any desire to keep up this conversation, and am regretful that I wrote that.

Please treat that as if the post were deleted.

My point, without being insulting, was to show you that on the surface things that look like horrible judgement aren't always. Being close to the situation it's harder to judge oneself as harshly as one might judge others.

 

[Cherry]

I am thinking upon autopsy they found out something else, like he was dead earlier than this "accident" or that he sustained injuries due to abuse.

 

[JeannaT]

I'm curious, Cherry, if the information the coroner continues to need includes detailed descriptions of the CPR performed on this child.

If he was there on concrete and received CPR for quite awhile from people in a panic, he could very well appear to have been beaten to death. I suspect that's what's causing some delay in the autopsy results, and the coroner to ask the investigators for better details.

 

[Chewy]

I fail to see how leaving an adult with a child is somehow the fault of the person who left them with an intelligent adult. He really is a PhD. I would never in a million years have thought he'd have done something so stupid. And if you want to insist that leaving a child with an adult who is babysitting, is the same as forgetting your kid in a car for eight hours, I don't know what to tell you. IMO that's just ridiculous.

No worries about offense. I suppose you might be defensive for some reason. But I still stand by my opinion that we should prosecute all of these parents for negligence.

 

[CrazytownUSA]

I wonder if it was his habit to take each child in separately - for whatever reason? If the other child was a baby it would be easy to see why you couldn't manage a baby, 2 diaper bags and a toddler easily at one time and might want to break that up into two trips to the car. I'm just really interested to see how this will play out with this investigation.

Well if that was the case, after you take one kid in, you KNOW you have the 2nd kid to take in... so "forgetting" wouldn't come into play. Unless he forgot he had a 2nd kid in the few minutes it took to take the 1st one in.

Been keeping an eye on this one. Sure looking more and more like the dad didn't "forget" the baby