Sometimes the cruelty inflicted on children in the name of “protecting” them boggles the mind. Consider the case of a two-year-old boy who, in June, must have wondered: Where did Mommy go? Why isn’t she in the house? Why do I never see her? Did I do something wrong?
Perhaps he’s still wondering – since I haven’t been able to find an update to this story.
It’s a story about a mother on Long Island who made a mistake. When she stopped at an outlet mall, she left the two-year-old in the car for 20 minutes. The doors were locked, but the motor was running – probably so she could keep the air conditioning on, which she did.
Someone called the police. They arrested her and called the family police - child protective services.
At least the child was not placed in foster care; he was allowed to live with his father. But the Assistant District Attorney handling the case claimed that the mother’s mistake made her such an extreme threat to the safety of her child that she should be banned from the home and her child denied all contact with her.
And what exactly was the risk? That Mom would sneak out of the house with her son just to get her jollies by leaving him alone in a car again? Seems unlikely.
But the judge, sitting at his literal bench and on his figurative high horse, bought it. Told by the mother’s public defender that her exile might leave her homeless …
Judge Alonzo Jacobs was unswayed. Calling her actions “a
real lapse of judgment,” Jacobs granted the protective order in full and
rebuked the mother in open court. “I care less about the homeless situation and
more about the child’s life,” Jacobs said. “He could have been kidnapped. He
could have suffocated.”
Well, yes, he could have been kidnapped. The odds are roughly 1 in 486,000 – assuming he were left in the car for an entire year. The odds of anyone suffocating in a car parked outdoors for 20 minutes with the air conditioning on also are extremely low.
In contrast, the odds that the judge inflicted psychological harm on the child by leaving him feeling his mother abandoned him are a whole lot higher. Is that how one cares about a child’s life?
Surely no one seriously believes this mom is going to do the same thing again. So while it surely was not his intention, the judge’s cruelty accomplishes nothing except to hurt the child.
Nice going, your honor.
