Posted on 04/30/2012 12:19:33 PM PDT by Daffynition
CLOVER, S.C. —
According to police, a woman was arrested for leaving her baby in a car for close to an hour and a-half.
Our news partners, The Gaston Gazette, told us Chelsea Ball, from Clover, S.C., left her baby in the car while she went into a pool hall early Saturday morning.
Police said the woman left the baby outside of West End Billards in Gastonia at 3:30 a.m.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsoctv.com ...
Freedom-loving Americans generally say to themselves: “what is safe for my family?” They make decisions based on everything they know. A police officer would say that he is in business to defend the innocent against criminals and idiots. The lady who decides to leave her baby in a car for over an hour at 3:30am - outside a pool hall no less - is a reckless idiot. If I were a police officer I’d call CPS and haul her ass off. But someone who leaves a guarded, sleeping baby in the car for a few minutes is probably not an idiot... Just someone busy who has made a calculated decision about his/her charge. In this case, were I a police officer, and even just as a citizen, I would keep an eye on the baby for safety’s sake, and truth be told possibly greet the parent upon return and say something like: “be careful, you never know if there’s some loony baby snatcher around,” and let that be that.
Freedom comes with responsibility. That’s what we like about it, and it’s better ho have both than neither. Our nanny state is indeed filled with busybodies and know-it-alls, but just a small part of that is because we do indeed care a great deal for our youngest and most innocent citizens. For instance, who can say for sure when coming across a baby in a truck with a dog that the parent has not been incapacitated in some way? After a ten-minute wait or so I could see even myself getting worried and perhaps calling the police. I don’t like to think I’m a busybody, but I probably would wait around.
Not to interrupt here but has it occurred to you that the person “doing the right thing” may have been been a pedo or rapist/murderer trying to -snatch- his kid?
It happens.
Far too often.
A person ~truly~ “doing the right thing” would have called the cops or gone into the store to get the manager.
The only exception to that acceptable protocol would be if the child were in immediate, grave danger, such as, the vehicle was on fire, the child was choking to death, dying of heat stroke or the dog was eating him.
The only problem I have with WD’s story is that he yelled a warning.
If you stick your nose or arm into my truck while The Boy’s on duty, you get no warning ~and~ what you deserve.
“be sure to notice...it’s a BLACK DOG....better now Cornel?
Hey Hey mama....”
LOL
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
Oh oh ohhhhh.
And there’s the difference;
*You* would hang around at a watchful distance and possibly call the cops if needed.
You would *not* attempt to break and enter a vehicle.
It’s known that I have issues with non-parents “touching” children but were it my child or my dog, I would instantly assume that any attempt to get hold of either one was an invitation to grave bodily harm.
We all remember Adam Walsh.
His mom ‘looked away’ for a moment and he was gone.
Did that little boy’s murderer tell other store patrons that he’d ‘found an unattended child and was just doing the right thing and taking him to the cops’ or whatever?
I’ve found a few unattended kids in my time.
I told them they were okay and that we’d find mom/dad and took them to the store’s service center where the person working bellowed their names over the loudspeaker.
And then I waited until the parents showed up because I don’t -know- the people running the service counter and I wanted to see if whomever showed up to claim the child was actually somebody the child _knew and was glad to see_.
Unless you’ve had the misfortune to experience what child abusers are capable of, you have *no* idea how incredibly clever they can be and how saintly they can appear.
Some of them actively cruise parking lots looking for ‘unattended kids in cars’.
And stores.
And playgrounds.
And church hallways.
Any place you can name, they’ll be there...waiting...and watching.
In hindsight I’m glad I wasn’t killed. But I got to the video rental store and a car parked in the lot had about 4 or 5 kids piled in it, ages about 4 - 8 or so. I hung out for a bit, but no parent in sight. The kids were pretty rambunctious, climbing over the seats, not aware at all of anything.
After awhile and still no parent, I glanced inside and the keys were in the ignition (all the windows rolled down). I took one last look around, grabbed the keys and told the kids I was going to give them to their parent. (The kids were “yeah - whatever”). I walked into the video rental store and loudly proclaimed “Who’s blue Volvo is outside with all of the kids left alone? I have your car keys!” A lady looking at videos came forward and claimed them and went outside.
I’m glad she was more embarassed than I was and didn’t make a big fuss with me. And I imagine the odds were that the kids would have been okay. But, it was easy enough for someone like me to grab the keys. It would have been easy enough for a bad guy to take the entire car.
Not me and my wife. But we do move the baby to the front seat before we climb in back!
I agree with you one hundred percent. At the same time, I am always quick to tell Europeans that ours (the US) is a BIG country with a LOT of people and a VERY active media - amber alerts, etc. - which is followed intently by a world practically falling over in self-righteous schadenfreude to hear news of the latest “TERRIBLE CRIME IN AMERICA.” The truth is, per capita, the US is probably the safest, most crime-free place in the world... Certainly WAY above non-Nordic Western Europe. Kids here are pretty safe, and I believe the video monitoring revolution, though Orwellian, has deterred many would-be parking lot / shopping-mall predators.
That baby is totally helpless and you don't know what can happen in those few minutes.
I bet there are many griving parents who which they could get those 'few minutes'.
Amazing how you can't see the difference.
That was a brillant post, it clearly reveals the intelligence level of someone who would leave an infant alone in the car to run into a store for ‘5 minutes’.
You believe that do you? And if the car had been stolen? You think a dog is going to stop a gun? The child was safe by the grace of God, nothing less.
If these comments represent the thinking of conservatives, no wonder this nation is on a downward spiral!
And what if there was an earthquake or a tornado? What if zombies attacked? What if bank robbers took the child as a hostage? What if a tsunami came and wiped out the whole town? What if Ents came to life and stomped the car?
Playing “What if...” is a straw man, and a silly, annoying one at that.
Then I promise that I’ll never be negligent enough to leave the car in the auto for only 5 minutes, ever.
thank you...I can teach you how if you like...we'll call it Southern Outreach
Woof!
I agree you did the right thing.
It’s called common sense....discretion
Given mine was locked and no key and a huge black pitbull meets rottweiler meets Satan looking dog sitting next to sleeping 4 year old in truck parked right in fro of HD ..yes...in the Construction Loading area
you woulda not done anything...that lady fixing to stick her arm in the crack in my window proved she was naive about dogs...maybe she was a whisperer
maybe whose dog and whose kid...at most
folks here do not realize it is still not against the law everywhere to leave a kid in a car briefly...as in gas or a coke stop
and these laws are very very new
Florida dates to around 1990...I recall it...no kids under some age left in vehicle period
it’s common sense...heat...dangerous area...car unlocked...etc...too much time...out of eyesight..
I grew up 55 years ago...when convenience stores were pull ups...open in front and some had curb service
then we went to 7-11 type stores
and now it’s the big gas-food-drink counter stores....
the latter would be harder to keep kids in car in eyesight
i have 5 from 5-23
as one would get older they could watch...say at 10 or so
I wonder what freepers think is youngest kids can be left home alone or walk to school or store etc
depends on area..I’m fairly rural now
I have no fear leaving my children guarded by my dogs...none whatsoever...they are very formidable
it got to 88 here on Sunday...we were at Cracker barrel..naturally right?.. and I noticed someone had left a big dog (Pyrenees...we have a lot of them here as pasture lords) in their truck.....panting....I did not like it much and debated going inside and saying something but I wasn’t sure...what if they just went in for takeout
so I waited...sure enough...it was takeout
my children love LZ...some things are timeless
my younger brother took us to see Van Halen last Friday
I admit VH came out at end of my college days and hence was not a formative years band for me
It was for him. Wifey was a punk rock cool chick and eschewed big rock
but we all loved it...watching Eddie Van Halen was incredible...great choppy licks and note bending
Roth still sounds the same ...what pipes...very hammy...Catskillian
My folks would leave me sleeping on the back seat of the Ford Fairlane convertible while they went into Red’s Twin Kiss for banana splits.
Nobody got me.
The 60’s were safer times.
Creeps and freaks had the decency to hide in dark alleys back then.
Now they have “pride” parades.
What if the car were a ‘58 Plymouth Fury...with a mind of its own?
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