Posted on 06/27/2005 6:58:32 AM PDT by Conservatrix
The grieving dad of the 11-year-old mentally troubled New Jersey boy who suffocated in a car trunk with two younger pals blames the state's social-services agency, saying it should have put his son in a facility where he could have gotten help.
"If he would have been put in a safe place, this wouldn't have happened. The child needed a lot of help," Anibal Cruz Sr. said yesterday. -snip-" [The division] did nothing," Cruz said. "Why didn't they lock the baby somewhere safe? When kids need help, they have to help them."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Before you jump to conclusions, our local high school has a wonderful playground with swings, slides and other fun things for the children in the school based daycare program. This is a class where students and learn childcare techniques under supervision--not daycare for student's children.
That being said, there's a real problem in America in the past two decades...the decades of "Harpo Productions"... everyone wants to blame someone and the person or people they want to blame typically have deep pockets.
This is a tragedy and it's one of those things that just happens. Children do indeed have a mind of their own and the police department there I'm sure did all they possibly could to find the children. Yes, I've seen the video of the officer right by the trunk. Sometimes it's impossible just to accept loss... it happens and in many cases, there's no one to blame. If anyone is to blame, perhaps it's the parents themselves. But doing so is risky at best... as I said, tragedies do happen where there's no fingers to point (or, there shouldn't be, anyway). In my estimation, there's no one to blame here.
LOL. I think he's going to be the go to guy now that Johnny C. has passed on.
I have to take issue with your comments. If this was a case of blatant and even recidivistic neglect, I would agree with you. However, we don't know that it is... sometimes accidents happen. I think this is (thus far) clearly one of those cases.
Mine is a 94 and has the trunk release by the drivers seat--don't know if it has the child safety release IN the trunk; probably not. My 8 year old knows never to play in a car trunk. It has 154,000 miles and I'm trying to sell it for $2000. That's reasonable, isn't it?
The car, not the eight year old..
I still can't understandy why no one heard the kids crying/screaming for help!
A five year old, a six year old and a mentally impaired eleven year old were left alone long enough for this to happen, that is the fault of the adult who assumed responsibility for them at that moment. Fate doesn't care what the history of care was up to that point, at that point someone dropped the ball. Child care is full time.
Oh my gosh, every 11 year-old I know has it. Thank goodness I grew out of it.
Using that reasoning, my brother and sister in law are responsible for the death of their 2 year old son in 1998 who got into the backyard and drowned in their above ground pool. That's not to say that they don't torture themselves still with their split second lack of attention.
In the modern America, no accidents happen apparently.
This guy is about to be sued.
It's called deflection.
It should be called divorce.
If your brother had a pool and a two year old and that combination led to the two year old's death then, yes, they are at fault. There are accidents and there are preventable incidents. A two year old absent long enough to get to the pool and drown is a preventable incident.
If what you say is true, then this was bound to happen.
It isn't in the best interest of gov't agencies to give fathers equal-footing where their children are concerned.
He may actually have a legitimate lawsuit here. I didn't know all of this previously.
You are right.
It applies on all levels.
Get screwed at work? Tough.
They'll drain you dry until you quit. They have lawyers in-house.
Good luck to you. Never quit.
The father admitted the kid needed a lot of help.
How is one to interpret that from a grieving father?
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Some will look for the most base interpretation, some the most lofty. My suggestion...we don't interpret it unless we knew the kid ourselves.
Do you have children?
Any backyard toddler drowning is preventable.
Any backyard toddler drowning is preventable.
Of course, that's little consolation to them.
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