Kid dies in a hot van... Thanks dad!
 

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I am constantly amazed by just how dumb people are.
How did this dumbass become a teacher?
It's pretty scary to think he's teaching kids. How can he teach a thing when he can't even remember a kid is in his vehicle?

Oh my goodness...that's awful. I personally think the punishment of killing your own child accidentally is more than enough.

My grandparents almost killed my dad once by leaving him in a hot car in Florida. My grandpa still feels guilty about it.

I think this is one of those things that's easier to do than you think. Oh, and as for the how did he become a teacher...Las Vegas is the fastest growing city in the U.S., and thus the fastest growing school district. They'll do anything for teachers.

these kinds of things happen a LOT and are reported quite a bit too! when are parents going to learn that leaving kids in a van for a long period of time is giong to kill/hurt them?

This happens all the damn time. All the time. Not much you can do to prevent it, I suppose.

Don't suppose his mother-in-law is thrilled with him...

doesn't make any difference what his profession is, he is obviously unqualified to be a parent...

we see so many of these stories out here in arizona... negligence that leads to the death or seruious harm of a child... animals too. people will leave their dogs and cats in a burning hot car for hours on end... it's nothing less than torture by ignorance. i haven't yet, but i feel that if i eve found this situation i'd break the windows in just to save that poor kid or animal.

well, thats one less person in the world.

Why do we still not require "parent licences"? :(

that's another way to look at it.

God that would suck, . Im not sure how I feel about him being prosocuted I mean on one hand he will probley kill himself for the guilt but in the other hand it is his fault:( Poor kid what a horrable death for the lil dude.

this is one thing I hate about living in MS. similiar to phred's statement, this is something I hear way too often...

parents can make mistakes but it seems to me that there are a few natural rules

1) Do not leave poisons, guns, blades, etc in the reach of children.

2) do not leave animals unsupervised with children

3) No sharp edges in their reach, nothing that can can fall down on them in their reach

4) NEVER LEAVE THE CHILD IN A VEHICLE ASSHOLE

5) don't let just anyone babysit.

geez guys, will anybody ever learn??:(:(

I just got back from there, and the heat is obscene right now. I can't even begin to imagine what it had to be like in that car. Even though the death of his son will be difficult for him, he should be in jail, he was negligent and caused the boy's death, he should be punished by the state as well as what he'll have to go through on his own. Break the law, and reap the consequences.

That's terrible. I can't imagine forgetting my little girl in a car. That blows my mind. Makes no sense. He doesn't deserve to be a dad, nor to live at this point, I think.

Why again are we supposed to feel sorry for this fuck-tard?

Why again is he likely to be charged with "felony child endangerment charge?" Didn't he kill the kid?

Whether he killed through his neglect or with beat the kid to death, this walking waste of sperm doesn't deserve to be free for a long, long time. Felony child endangerment charge....what the fuck?!?

Happens a lot in hot places where there are chances to gamble around.

Well, that's two less people in the world. :D

He shouldn't go to prison.

The penal system is intended to:
- keep you from posing a danger to others after the crime
- to act as a deterrent to crime
- to give the convicted person the time and the environment to realise what they did was wrong and be rehabilitated.

In this case:
- This father with the guilt and memory of this for the rest of his life. He will probably never leave a kid in a car unaccompanied for more than second.
- He doesn't need rehabilition to see the error of his ways. He had a lapse of concentration and was negligent. And other parents won't not let their kids die in hot cars for fear of punishment. They let it happen because they are busy and forgetful.
- Prison will only tear the family apart further and certainly not help the remaining son.

My recommendation: All cars should have alarms in them that go off when there is motion detected in the car. This would be a great security device and prevent many such accidents.

4thtime is right. There is no reason to waste the space in a jail...Then we have to pay for him through taxes...

I hope you feel the same when you fuck up.

Ya I gotta say that the family will already be stressed to its limits. Here is a question for you guys, If your spouse was the one who did something like this would you leave them, or would you comfort them and keep them from killing themselves? I know my wife loves our daughter, so if she did something like that she could never forgive herself, and a part of me would never forgive as well, but I also love her and know she would never do anything like that on purpose.

I hope your not happy about it?

The second saddest thing about this story is that this guy is probably a really great guy who unfortunately had a memory lapse and as a result,lost his child for it.

You ever get that feeling where you just go,..whew, that really just could have cost me? Well this is what happens when we miss that signal.

I still can't believe someone could do this to their own son. It's just baffles me considering it's their offspring...something you love and take care of.....Accidents do happen...but something like this...shit...way over the top...it's suprising how much this happens..dont' you think people would learn by now?

This isn't a fuck up. A fuck up is running over your kids bike. A fuck up is buying the wrong kind of paint for the house or buying chocolate doughnuts instead of glazed.

A fuck up does not include killing a child due to my inability to reason that a hot car probably isn't a safe place to store my kids. It's not like he accidently run a kid over in a busy street. He didn't lose control of a car and careen into a playground. He killed a kid because he was too fucking lazy to drag his kid out when he got his coffee. He killed a kid because he was too fucking lazy to check on the kid while he was doing his everyday errands.

This completely helpless kid, who he was responsible for, died because he wasn't paying attention. This isn't a fuck up. It's a homicide.

This goes to show you that carelessness can have dire consequences. I can't fathom how people forget that they have their kids with them. Our daughter always travels in one of our vehicles, and not the other (no exceptions). Even when she's not with me, I start to go to the back door to get her out of her seat out of habit.

When you guys are walking through a parking lot and the heat comes to mind, try to make it a habit to look around during your walk back to the car. You never know, you might stumble across this type of situation and might be able to help.

yes, this IS a fuckup. leaving your kid in a car is a mistake just as easy to make as locking your keys in your car. it's just that this mistake has much more severe consequences. some of you guys are starting to make it look like he did it on purpose.

I said it was a fuck up. I think it's a really big fuck up. Stop it with the aggressive closed-mindedness.

It was completely accidental (or so from what I can gather) and is no where near the same level of thought as an intentional killing.

Finally, what good will putting him in prison do? Keep a dangerous, merciless killer like him "off the streets"? I'm prepared to hear to a well-thought out, logical argument, so please don't let me down.

I agree with butthead and buffto, it is a fucking HUGE fuck up. Bit it wasnt fucking intentional.

Its amazing what range of emotions one can go through by reading these posts. At first I was thinking what alot people were thinking "He deserves to go to prison for long time because he IS the fuck up" but 4thTimeLucky did bring up a good point. In our society we are so quick to seek vengeance we sometimes forget to stop and think about why we want vengeance and what we are trying to prove. I do not think we should seak punishment for this horrific but unintentional event. I DO think he should have to go to ... some ... sort of class. I mean I don't even know what but he has to be fucked up to not make the connection of hot car + young child = bad fucking idea.

Okay, putting aside the close-minded agressive feelings I have, allow me to work through my train of thought on this one.

Bear in mind that I have no statistics to submit, but it seems to me that few killings are intentional. Few people have the ability to murder someone in cold blood. It's always a gun accidently going off, a car careening out of control, a robbery gone wrong, a moment of passion, et cetera. That being said, If I were to kill someone with a gun accidently, run over a group full of kids at school, or kill the local convenience store clerk during a holdup chances are I wouldn't get a "felony endangerment" charge. I would be charged with manslaughter or murder most likely. Just because he happened to spawn the kid, does not entitle him to a lighter sentence when the result is the same.

I don't know if my point came across in that, but it's the best I can I do.

No, this is not an issue of "protecting society" on this one. In my opinion, it's more of a "punishment/reabilitate" issue. I don't think this guy should go to prison to protect little children everywhere from this monster :rolleyes: I rather think that since he did, in fact, kill a child, either by intent or negligence, then he should have to face the punishment and learn from this mistake. Surely this was an accident, but even accidents have consequences. I'm sure after a few years in an institution he'll be able to make the assumption that hot cars and kids don't mix and he'll never do it again. And even though he feels awfully sorry for killing his own son, I'm sure the guy who accidently kills his wife while cleaning his rifle is awfully sorry as well.

My intent wasn't about vengence, however venom filled it was, it was about equal punishment. This guy took a life. And although the circumstances are special, the fact is he is absent one son today and he is to blame. I'm sure he will never forgive himself for his stupidity, but that realization doesn't bring back his son, or balance out his debt to the justice system.

It sounds logical to me. I hope I didn't let you down ;)

Two word. Punk and Ass. Put em together and what do you got?

He owes no debt to the justice system. The justice system is just a bureaucratic tool - a "system".
He owes a debt to his family.
He may owe a debt to God or to his lost son, wherever he may be.
At a stretch he may owe a debt to society.

But which debt takes priority? The one to his family. And that is not served by making him rot away in prison. Even if he did owe a debt to society it would hardly be repaid by sitting in a prison cell doing nothing for two years.

You are right guthmund, nothing will bring back his son. And that includes prison.

Note that intentionally killing someone and doing so in cold-blood are different things. Setting in motion a chain of events that accomplish the goal of killing someone doesn't necessarily mean the person must feel no remorse or regret.

I agree that someone shouldn't be exempt from any crime simply because the victim was their offspring, but in this case I don't agree that prison time would be effective for anything positive such as rehabilitation (punishment is not the same as rehabilitation), whether it was the father or the babysitter.

Then I suppose there is a discrepancy in some of our core philosophical values, nothing new. Just it seems neither is going to agree with the other.

And accidentally killing your own child isn't punishment and is impossible to learn from except for being placed in a federal prison? I disagree.

I think being the one responsible for your child's accidental death is beyond consequence for most people.

This reasoning seems blatantly sadistic. Is it unreasonable to suggest that the man had a "momentary lapse of reason/judgment"? I know I am an intelligent person and leaving children in hot cars to their deaths is not something I typically do, but it is a mistake I could see myself making. Distractions and forgetfulness aren't marks of a "bad" or stupid person. I'm not going to pretend to myself that I'm beyond all of the stupid things I read about people doing in the media because I know I am not perfect.

Unless you want to have "make sure to not leave a child in a hot car" the focal point of his life and maximize his suffering, jail probably wouldn't be the best place for him.

"An eye for an eye and we're all blind."

Why should we not consider these special circumstances when determining a "punishment" or aftermath for the person?

While you didn't let me down, I am disappointed because I see that there is a huge difference on how we feel on this issue and I don't think I will be able to convince you of my viewpoint, nor will you be able to convince me of yours.

Maybe this is logical to your ideal world, but a world as sadistic as the one you described is something I cannot agree with.

I don't want to seem annoying, but I am really impressed with 4thTimeLucky's post. They seem to approach the issue from an entirely different direction than mine, while at the same time being acceptable to me.

While I agree with my points, I also agree with 4thTimeLucky's.

neither happy nor sad am i..

what is the word? ah yes... indifferent.

I was heading up to the cottage last summer and I had my parents dogs with me (two small little dogs) and stopped off at the grocery store to get supplies for the weekend.

It was quite hot outside and I didnt even think to crack the windows. They are my parents dogs and I didnt even think about it.

About 15 minutes later I came out with my groceries and there was a scathing note on my windshield from an obviously irate doglover saying to ALWAYS crack windows to dissipate the heat.

I now always take great care when I leave the dogs in my car. I have the windows open enough that they can stick their noses out.

In most cases, it's apparently not so much an issue of thinking a kid will be okay as much as it's a matter of forgetting the child is there in the first place.

Y'know, until just now, I couldn't imagine a good reason for a child to be noisy in a car. :(

No, it's a fuck up. You've never forgotten something??

Yes it is a huge screwup. I have had friends who's parents forgot the youngest child at the grocery store but then again they had like 6 children. They went back the moment they realized what had happened. I can see it happening but not for that length of time. I'm guessing this guy who's got a family was possibly working his ass off to support the family. Teachers around here don't get paid much-I don't know about in Vegas. If he was sleep deprived, overworked, or stressed then it would contribute to the problem. It just goes to show that taking care of your family also includes taking care of yourself. I do home day care and I KNOW that I'm much less patient, and able to deal with naughty kids when I'm sleep depriaved. I also am less aware of what they are doing. It's probable that the 8 mo old was asleep and the dad forgot. If Mom usually takes care of the baby then he may not have been in the habit of checking for the baby. Both parents need to be involved in taking care of the child. I would say that no matter what someone needs to do a serious evaluation of the guy and that he needs to take a sabatical from teaching at the very least. If he can't remember his own child he is not going to be able to handle a whole classroom of kids. In my opinion this was a mistake albeit a HUGE one. I don't think it should go unpunished but since I don't know the guys circumstances I wouldn't even assume to know the proper punishment.
I guess I'm sortof comparing this situation to one that I dealt with before. The children from this one single mom were so emotionally abused and the oldest boy who was about 5 didn't have legs from the knees down. Reason was the mom had gotten angry with him, pushed him down on the ground and then proceeded to push the running lawn mower over his legs and feet tearing them to bits. When you see the results of something like that and you know it was done with intent then hearing of something like this pales in comparison. She didn't love that child. This man may very well have loved his child. Loved him so much that he was working and stressing himself to the point of not being able to stay as aware of what he was doing. I just pray I never get to that point.

Stop right there and go look them up. They should be on the FBI web site. Come back when you've done the research.