That’s my point in all of this. There but for the grace of God go I. It’s easy at some point to let something distract us from very important details and the results can sometimes, unfortunately, be catastrophic. I know of a woman who was carrying groceries in after a rain. She set her toddler down, picked up the groceries and walked into the house to put the groceries away. She thought the child was with her - she found the child had fallen face first into a puddle, breathed in the water and drowned.
Another man was on a dock with his 3 yo at a small lake. He turned around to pick something up and in that instant the kiddo jumped into the water. He was in right behind him but couldn’t find him in the murky water fast enough and the child drowned.
the way the baby in this situation died is horrific to consider. That the mom had so many opportunities to realize her mistake and didn’t is aggravating and frightening. But the prosecutor’s choice to not press charges is reasonable and, if we are to trust his judgement at all, probably merciful in a time when grief is unimaginable.
We had an incident 2 years ago where a little toddler and his siblings were being watched by a young nanny. The nanny took them to the park, where there is a big playground near the lake. Next thing she knew, the toddler boy had run down the embankment and was drowned in the lake.
Not only was she blamed (damned if you’re the mother, and damned if you’re not), but our Kommie-land has made it a big issue about “safeguarding” the playground with fencing of some kind so the kids theoretically can’t go down to the lake! How angry our Kommies were that “some outsider contractor” concluded it wasn’t worth the effort to put in any fence. (It’s also funny because Kommie-land is very big on restrictions to make it “look nice” - and even the best fence is going to ruin the flavor of the surrounding park and nearby lake.) The fact is, in the 25+ years that place has been around, noone has died before. The stats just aren’t there to justify all this safety-nazi stuff.
The cases you cite are one-time incidents, unless their actions were known to be habitual. Were they? Plus, I doubt it took them 8 hours or even minutes to figure out something was amiss. Don’t you get it? This woman was known to leave her children in the car alone for several minutes at a time on various occasions and was warned not to do so. She went to her car several times on the day of the incident. To not question her behavior is irresponsible in and of itself. And the reason the prosecutor isn’t pressing charges is because under Ohio law she can’t be held responsible unless it can be proven she intentionally left the child in the car. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t think she’s guilty or deserves it.
“the way the baby in this situation died is horrific to consider. That the mom had so many opportunities to realize her mistake and didn’t is aggravating and frightening. But the prosecutor’s choice to not press charges is reasonable and, if we are to trust his judgement at all, probably merciful in a time when grief is unimaginable.”
After watching the videos I’m incline to agree with you except that others were prosecuted for similar circumstances.
If they aren’t going to prosecute this woman, they should be equally merciful with other parents and drop charges against them.