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Pretty close. Read all of your posts.
Do you also believe all that the media has to say about Israel?
As someone who works in law enforcement I tend to believe certain aspects as to what the media reports. So let’s look at what I believe:
1. The child was left in the car.
2. Someone broke the windshield after seeing the child in distress.
3. At least one media outlet reported the mother shopping with two other children. If that is true then I question why they did not say anything about the baby.
4. If you consider this a “conviction in my own mind” then there is nothing else I could write that will convince you otherwise.
I would not be surprised in the slightest if what happened was the mother walked in with the two children assuming the older one brought in the baby. When within a short time she realized the older one assumed the mother took the baby, the mother went running out to get the baby. By that time the passerby who saw the baby moments after the mother left had already broken the window and called the police who arrived within minutes. So the whole shebang took place within 10-15 minutes.
But of course the above scenario doesn’t sell papers. And then the passerby can’t pose for the media as a hero. And the press would barely have a Page 17 three line burb rather than a Page 2 five article hitjob.
And if the above scenario was indeed the real story while the press ran with some fiction it wouldn’t be the first time. Or second. Or five thousandth.
iacisrmma – whats your job?
I would not be surprised in the slightest if what happened was
No, Joseph… you got it all wrong. I’ll tell you what happened.
The “rescuer” was a person who decided that he needed some instant fame. He noticed that the back door of the car was unlocked and hatched a plan. He ran into the store, found the mother with the baby, grabbed the baby and ran out of the store. He then put the baby in the car and locked the door.
Then, he started a commotion, calling the police and saying “there’s a baby in a locked car,” smashed the window and had the mother thrown in jail.
The Wolf
Joseph there are problems with that theory. But it does not benefit anyone to point them out. I also don’t know why it’s important to make up stories about how the baby was left in the car when the others weren’t. Anyone with kids knows that older kids don’t like to sit in the car while anyone with babies knows the temptation of leaving a sleeping baby lie.
Although I never understood it I know many people who left their babies or kids in the car thinking they are “just running in and out”. When they get in, with empty hands, they can get distracted and forget they were in a rush. That can happen and is much easier to believe than many of the above stories.
I’ve even had ‘friends’ who ran to carpool while their baby slept. People get desperate when they are stretched thin.
I am not excusing or even understanding the behavior but it’s not that uncommon. We can pretend it doesn’t happen but we wouldn’t be doing anyone any favors.
Iacisrmma, I don’t need to dispute any of the facts you presented to assert that it is still far more likely that this was a case of forgotten baby syndrome than a case of a negligent (to intentionally leave a child under any circumstance) and ignorant (to not know the car gets dangerously hot) or worse, callous and unloving mother who doesn’t care if her child dies (not that you claimed this).
These are so unlikely, to the point of being preposterous, but my explanation (that she met her other children in the store) or Joseph’s (that she thought the baby was with the other children), or other possibilities are far more likely. The halachah us that we must assume the mist favorable, and it’s not even a stretch here under the circumstances.
Your disclaimer is very nice, but doesn’t explain why you wrote, “I really would like to be Hevei dan es kol haadam l’kaf zchus. I am sure the mother is agonizing over this. But you have a 13 year old and 7 year old with you in the store and none of you realize the baby is not with you?”, and why you keep focusing on the worst (and least likely) explanation, even if you’re uncertain. If you would like to be dan l’kaf z’chus (as if it’s optional…) the opportunity is right in front of you.
Syag, the scenarios you describe are all real and true. But they have nothing to do with this particular mother and incident. There is no reason to think my suggested scenario isn’t pretty close to the truth. Unless you accept the media narrative. Because without the media narrative there’s nothing to suggest what I described isn’t exactly what happened.
One thing I’m willing to bet dollars-to-donuts is that the time-frame from when she went into the store until when she came running out, will turn out to be that what the media suggested and published on that got it very wrong.
Joseph, unless you tell me you know them or that you were there, your story is fiction. And to me, it doesn’t even make sense. Mothers aren’t dumb, they are just stretched thin. I think the made up, farfetched scenerios do more to hurt her than to help her. Why point out that you have to go out on a limb to come up with a limud zchus.
I don’t read the news, remember? I just have been a mom, surrounded by moms, intimately involved with moms for more than a quarter century. I would assume, respectfully, that your interactions with other mothers and awareness of how they think and work and is very, very limited and highly speculative.
It may very well be fiction. But it also may very well be closer to the truth than the media narrative, which also may very well be fiction.
sparkly: Sorry to be blunt but that is none of your business. I stated I was in “law enforcement”. You can guess whether I am a cop or something else.
If you don’t want me to believe what has been reported in the media then YWN should never have ran with the story in the first place.
Joesph: Based on the timing of the events, the mother was probably in the store 40 MINUTES, not the 15 minutes that you state.
I DO NOT believe that the mother intentionally left the baby in the car; but the fact is that it did happen.
Here’s the bottom line: For at least the third time this summer YWN has reported about babies from our community being left in closed cars in the heat (both here in the USA and in EY). B’H this incident did not turn into a “tragedy” due to some quick thinking bystanders. That the mother has been charged with child endangerment is an unfortunate outcome but hopefully she will be able to hire a lawyer who can either get the charges reduced or possibly dismissed.
DaasYochid: As I have stated I am the father of a number of children (more than 5 but less then 15 and they are all very close in age). I know how hard it is to keep track of my children when in a supermarket (let alone a big department store). How many hundreds if not thousands of times did my children fall asleep in their car seats? I don’t know but B”H we never left them in a car (either by accident or intentionally). So yes, both my own parental experience and my professional experience needs me to ask that IF as the media reports their were the other children there………………..I am sorry if that offends you. I am hoping that because of these incidents others will learn to be more diligent in these situations.
40 minutes because the newspaper gal needing a story reported that? The news didn’t report someone saw when the mother went in, they reported what the hero estimated he thought the time was. You know that it wasn’t shorter because you do dispatch for law enforcement or because “if you don’t want me to believe what has been reported in the media then YWN should never have ran with the story in the first place”?
I DO NOT believe that the mother intentionally left the baby in the car
Then of what relevance is the fact that there were other children there?
Joseph it’s nice that you want it to be a short time, but you can’t go off on someone who is reading the story. You don’t know what it was, you know what you would like it to be or maybe you would like to suggest a limud zchus. But to harp on him angrily because he doesn’t share your self constucted version makes no sense.
I still think it is a more respectful limud zchus to say she left the baby in the car thinking she would be right out, then to say she just lost reality for a moment. But since I don’t know, I’m not going to insist you buy my version.
” but you can’t go off on someone who is reading the story.”
Sure I can. Firstly it’s assur to read loshon hora. And secondly, once you heard it you shouldn’t believe it. There’s no reason to give the newspaper narrative credence just because that’s what they reported.
and you shouldn’t read the story either. what kind of craziness is saying that we are all going to read the news stories but we cant believe them so then we are going to just make up our own versions of them all?
and it aint for you to decide which parts each person should be accepting. Maybe he’s right and it really was 40 minutes but really it was a lion in the car and it was in hackensack. oh please.
Just stop reading them. That’s why we don’t buy the jewish papers anymore either.
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