catspajamas's Blog

Yesterday an employee for the City Hall in Ocoee left her 22 month old child in a hot car causing the toddler's death. The woman claims to have forgotten her child was in the car after she was supposed to be dropping the child off at day care. She also claims that this is normally her husbands job to take the child to day care and not a part of her normal routine. The mother is reported to have several other children and other City Hall employees claim that she is a good mother. There are NO charges being filed in the death of this 22 month old.

A lot of us, in fact most of us, have children. Some of us even have children close to the age of this child. How can a so called "good" parent forget their child in the car? I for one do not believe it is possible. I have children and one is very close to the same age as this child, I could NEVER forget that she is sitting behind me in her car seat.

After several deaths last year involving children dyeing in hot vehicles the state of Florida has passed some new laws regarding the issue of leaving your child unattended in a vehicle. Not too lang ago, a woman left her child in the car in front of her home while she ran in to get an umbrella. The car was stolen with the child inside and the woman was charged with a misdemeanor criminal offense for leaving the child in the vehicle unattended. In some cases, such as a resulting death of a child left in a vehicle, the parent or care giver in question is charged with a felony offense. So, why not this mother? Could it be she was not charged with the neglectful death of her child because she works for City Hall? Do politics play a role here? Is this a case of "who you know"?

According to the news story I watched last night the mother went out to check on her vehicle approximately 3 hours after arriving at City Hall to report for work that morning, around lunch time. At this time she reportedly discovered her 22 month old unconscious and was completely oblivious to the fact that she had "forgotten" to drop the toddler off at day care that morning. This sounds suspicious to me. Why would you go out to "check" on your vehicle if you had no idea that you left something as important as your child behind?

I believe this is a double standard of sorts. It is as though, because this woman works for City Hall she is infallible in the eyes of the law and not responsible for the death of her child. If the woman had worked at the 7-11 but all the other circumstances were the same, would there be no charges? I think not.

What do you think? Should this woman be charged for the death of her child? Could you forget your child was in the car? Do you believe there is a double standard here? Do you think this was a clear case of intentional neglect? I sure do.