FL - Henry Sengaroun for rape of 8yo girl, St Petersburg, 2006

[MrsMush99]

Interesting that you quote a lot from the UK. I assure you, these are not "SCARE STORIES" when they happen to your child. I hope and pray that neither you, nor anyone you know can find out in an instant that ANYONE can become a statistic.

I was watching John Walsh once. And he said, make your children afraid to keep them safe. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I rather be an overprotective parent, then a sorry parent. When Carlie Brucia went missing, and they showed the video tape of her being taken I made my daughter watch that video. And I said to her, do you see why I don't let you go off by yourself? Can my daughter go to her friends house? Of course she can. Did I leave my daughter at the church bizzare with friends? Yes I did. Of course there were mother's from the school that were working the bizzare and my husband was also there working so I knew in an emergency someone would be there to help her. I let her feel some independence, but I knew she was being watched. And she had to check in with the security guards every hour so they could tell my husband she was fine. And you know what? She did it and did not complain one bit about it.

 

[TisHerself]

No one that I have seen has attacked the mother. The simple fact is that she SHOULD NOT have left her 7 and 8 year old children alone in a park. Even it was for just a minute, because that's all it took. Was one minute. Yes this man SHOULD be held accountable and put in jail for the rest of his life. But the fact still remains that what the mother did was irresponsible.

The Mother is being attacked, to say that she is not is being dishonest. she has been attacked all over this thread. The only one responsible for this little girl being raped is the perp no one else.

 

[kahskye]

Well, if you want to think having her children walk that *alleged* 130 feet with her for five minutes so she could turn off the stove constitutes a prison-like environment, that is your right. You are continually asserting that any poster who does not agree with your parenting style is hypervigilant and paranoid and will not be able to raise normal children. You list extremes. No one has said put your kids in a bubble and never let them out, but at the age of 7 and 8 if you think they are okay to be completely out of sight of a supervising adult in a public place is appropriate thing to do, then more power to you. People who keep an eye on their young children are not hypervigilant and paranoid, they are careful.

:clap:

 

[nanandjim]

...The simple fact is that she SHOULD NOT have left her 7 and 8 year old children alone in a park...

This is sad but true. The mother should have made the kids walk home with her and then returned with them. I don't know if it were a neighborhood park where the Mom thought that she could be gone for a few minutes. However, anything could have happened. Heck, the kids could have been seriously injured on the monkey bars or whatever.

That being said, I roamed the streets and played from morning until night totally unsupervised. I had a few close calls, one with an obvious sexual deviant. However, I was never raped! Thank goodness.

Kids need to be watched, especially in a public place like a park.

 

[kahskye]

No one that I have seen has attacked the mother. The simple fact is that she SHOULD NOT have left her 7 and 8 year old children alone in a park. Even it was for just a minute, because that's all it took. Was one minute. Yes this man SHOULD be held accountable and put in jail for the rest of his life. But the fact still remains that what the mother did was irresponsible.

Was it stated anywhere exactly how long the mother was gone? Is she the only one saying she was gone 5 minutes, or was there another witness? I know we've read about cases before where someone said it was only a minute, but when further questioned, it was really 15 minutes.

 

[MrsMush99]

Was it stated anywhere exactly how long the mother was gone? Is she the only one saying she was gone 5 minutes, or was there another witness? I know we've read about cases before where someone said it was only a minute, but when further questioned, it was really 15 minutes.

It's in the link on the first page. That she left them for a few minutes to turn off the stove.

 

[Pepper]

Bad things sometimes happen to good people.

My grandchildren (5 & 9) play outside all the time. They live at the end of a cul-de-sac, and the children gather to play there and in the garage. My daughter always leaves the garage door open and the door to the inside propped open so she can glance out and hear them. I don't believe she is required to sit outside with them while they play!

We can either choose to live our lives in fear of the worst that can happen, or we can choose to live life believing in the basic goodness of mankind. We can't swaddle our children in cotton until they are grown. Each year a child ages brings forth the need for slightly more independence and growth room.

What happened to this child could very well have happened to the mother or some other woman walking alone. The fact that it happened to an 8 yr old child is truly horrifying. While this mother may feel guilt, she did not cause this to happen to her child!

Unfortunately life has its risks, and there are no guarantees. Just because a plane crashes once in awhile is not going to keep me off of them. Accidents happen. Sh*t happens.

 

[ljwf22]

I don't know if this has been posted but they have arrested someone.

"ST. PETERSBURG - Kenny Miller knew Henry Sengaroun was mentally disturbed, and even his own mother was afraid of him. Sometimes, the 18-year-old would wander the neighborhood aimlessly, said Miller, a community police officer.

On Thursday, police arrested Sengaroun, saying he raped an 8-year-old girl in full daylight by Central Oak Park. Miller had told detectives to check out Sengaroun after learning about the man who fled the scene.

"When they described the suspect, it matched him to a T. I knew he was hanging out in that area," said Miller, 29, who started working in the neighborhood two months ago. "Most community police officers try to get to know the bad people in the neighborhood."
Link: http://www.sptimes.com/2006/07/21/news_pf/Southpinellas/Man_is_arrested_in_ra.shtml

 

[SewingDeb]

That is one of the funniest misrepresentations of anything that has been said on this thread that I have ever read! Thanks for the early morning chuckle!

I'm glad you find it funny.

 

[SewingDeb]

Exactly! I caught that from one of the posters who allows her children outside freedom but worries about on-line predators. The guy down the block or down the aisle of the store may be far more at hand of a predator than one that has to be arranged!!!:doh:

You are correct.

Also those who take comfort in the statistics that stranger abductions are rare should remember that many pedophiles groom both the parents and the child and are trusted by the family. That puts them in the category of known individuals rather than strangers, but they are no less dangerous.

 

[SewingDeb]

Was it stated anywhere exactly how long the mother was gone? Is she the only one saying she was gone 5 minutes, or was there another witness? I know we've read about cases before where someone said it was only a minute, but when further questioned, it was really 15 minutes.

I was wondering the same thing. We have seen that many times, haven't we?

 

[Mama-cita]

Speaking of which, I can also guarantee you that any credentialed professional would also not degrade this poor mother and call her a bad parent because this happend to her daughter. I feel nothing but sympathy for her and her daughter.

I'd like you to point out ONE THREAD where this woman has been degraded. She made a bad choice. A professional would not be afraid to tell her that. Parents can make bad choices and not be bad parents. Geesh. I don't know why that is so hard to understand. But I think even if I said it 700 languages some people still would not be able to grasp the concept that people here KNOW the rapist is to blame. But for pity's sake, how freaking hard would it have been for the woman to take her kids with her back home? It was a poor judgment on her part. I swear, there are some people in this world who think that women should never have to have any accountability for their actions. When a woman murders, they automatically assume she was provoked. When a woman gets pass-out drunk and something happens to her, no, I am not saying it is not her fault (if something happens to her), but my GOSH, there are certain situations which can lead to disaster. It is NOT blaming or bashing the victim to say something was preventable. My girlfriends and I, in college, always looked out for one another. No one left with someone we didn't know, if one person wanted to leave, someone had to go with her. This is what is called common sense: not putting yourself in a situation that can turn into something you will live to regret. Yes, the mother is to be pitied. Yes, she has to live with her poor choice, and YOU KNOW WHAT? I bet she regrets NOT taking her kids with her.

 

[MagicRose99]

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

The Mother is being attacked, to say that she is not is being dishonest. she has been attacked all over this thread. The only one responsible for this little girl being raped is the perp no one else.

 

[MagicRose99]

Bad things sometimes happen to good people.

My grandchildren (5 & 9) play outside all the time. They live at the end of a cul-de-sac, and the children gather to play there and in the garage. My daughter always leaves the garage door open and the door to the inside propped open so she can glance out and hear them. I don't believe she is required to sit outside with them while they play!

We can either choose to live our lives in fear of the worst that can happen, or we can choose to live life believing in the basic goodness of mankind. We can't swaddle our children in cotton until they are grown. Each year a child ages brings forth the need for slightly more independence and growth room.

What happened to this child could very well have happened to the mother or some other woman walking alone. The fact that it happened to an 8 yr old child is truly horrifying. While this mother may feel guilt, she did not cause this to happen to her child!

Unfortunately life has its risks, and there are no guarantees. Just because a plane crashes once in awhile is not going to keep me off of them. Accidents happen. Sh*t happens.

Perfectly put! :clap:

 

[TisHerself]

I'd like you to point out ONE THREAD where this woman has been degraded. She made a bad choice. A professional would not be afraid to tell her that. Parents can make bad choices and not be bad parents. Geesh. I don't know why that is so hard to understand. But I think even if I said it 700 languages some people still would not be able to grasp the concept that people here KNOW the rapist is to blame. But for pity's sake, how freaking hard would it have been for the woman to take her kids with her back home? It was a poor judgment on her part. I swear, there are some people in this world who think that women should never have to have any accountability for their actions. When a woman murders, they automatically assume she was provoked. When a woman gets pass-out drunk and something happens to her, no, I am not saying it is not her fault (if something happens to her), but my GOSH, there are certain situations which can lead to disaster. It is NOT blaming or bashing the victim to say something was preventable. My girlfriends and I, in college, always looked out for one another. No one left with someone we didn't know, if one person wanted to leave, someone had to go with her. This is what is called common sense: not putting yourself in a situation that can turn into something you will live to regret. Yes, the mother is to be pitied. Yes, she has to live with her poor choice, and YOU KNOW WHAT? I bet she regrets NOT taking her kids with her.

No professional is going to tell that mother that she made a bad choice, anyone that does is setting themselves up for a law suit big time.

 

[beakiebean]

When my kids were growing up we didn't have all of this stuff going on. I usually lived in smaller towns but not real real small. I'm so glad that I'm not raising little kids in this day and age. My kids are grown and have mostly older kids except for a 6 yr old and then a 14 yr old.

I had 4 kids in 5 1/2 years and there is no way I could have watched each one of them all of them time and gotten anything done. They were allowed to ride their bikes to their friends houses and around the block. They walked to the little store a few blocks away...never just one of them though. As they grew up they were allowed further away from home. They would join their friends at parks...the movies...skating...etc. You just never ever heard of a child getting raped or abducted.

Now 12 1/2 yrs ago when I started raising my grandaughter things were already different. She was fearful because of her dad and so if she went outside to play she wore a whistle on a ribbon around her neck. It was against the rules to blow it unless it was for an emergency. This was suggested by her therapist. I kept a lot tighter rein on her. I took her to her friends instead of her riding her bike, etc. Keeping one child close was something I could handle and she usually had friends over and they played in doors...I didn't have my eyes on her every second of the day though. I could not have watched 4 little kids every second of the day without looking away....impossible. They went all different ways and there was only one of me. Thank God times were so much different.

Isn't it amazing. I remember being 8 years old and riding my bike to the park with my friends to play in our small town. Of course if something tragic had happened to me then the community would have offered it's support and sympathy to my parents, today first they'd suspect them and then they'd crucify them for every parenting mistake they ever made.

 

[SewingDeb]

I wonder what kind of advice that mother will be giving other mothers in years to come.

My reaction is not crucifying the mother but worry about the children of those who think it is perfectly safe to let their children roam the neighborhood. BTW: It wasn't safe back in the day but we didn't have all the news we have now to tell us so.

 

[bakerprune64]

You leave out important components to your argument. The park was LESS THAN HALF A BLOCK AWAY (about 130 steps as another poster estimated) from the mother's apartment. The mother left the children for A FEW MINUTES to turn off a stove. These facts would need to be relayed to the pediatrician or LCSWer so that they may be fully informed. Simply saying "7 and 8 year olds left in a park alone..." is misconstruing and misleading, IMHO.

I too am a board certified RN (in psychiatric nursing) and a mother of 3. Safety of children is paramount to me also. My children wear helmets, ride in boosters even at 6 and 9, wear life vests in the water, etc. But I refuse to not let them ride their bikes and play at neighbor's homes and explore their world, all because of a 0.0038% chance they will be abducted by a stranger.

When I was referring to dangers in the home, I was talking about physical and sexual abuse, which almost always occurs in the home and is usually perpetrated by a family member.

Well since I work for an agency that houses Child protectives services, I put your theory to the test. I spoke to 7 LCSW's and all agreed that children of the ages 7 & 8 should have never been left alone in a public park, no matter the fact the mom was an alleged 130 feet away. They all agreed that if this situation happened here, the mother's actions would most likely be investigated and the could have been placed with a non-custodial relative until the results of their investigation were documented.

 

[Mama-cita]

Well since I work for an agency that houses Child protectives services, I put your theory to the test. I spoke to 7 LCSW's and all agreed that children of the ages 7 & 8 should have never been left alone in a public park, no matter the fact the mom was an alleged 130 feet away. They all agreed that if this situation happened here, the mother's actions would most likely be investigated and the could have been placed with a non-custodial relative until the results of their investigation were documented.

You rock, baker! :blowkiss:

 

[SewingDeb]

Well since I work for an agency that houses Child protectives services, I put your theory to the test. I spoke to 7 LCSW's and all agreed that children of the ages 7 & 8 should have never been left alone in a public park, no matter the fact the mom was an alleged 130 feet away. They all agreed that if this situation happened here, the mother's actions would most likely be investigated and the could have been placed with a non-custodial relative until the results of their investigation were documented.

Alright Baker! Good for you. This just verifies my view on the subject.