In spite of the recent tragedies of toddlers being killed or seriously hurt from being locked in a car, I guess it really isn't all that surprising that police are being extra-vigilant to protect kids from hot cars. Some cases, however, like that of a woman in Connecticut being criminally charged for leaving her daughter in a car, are downright ridiculous.
(emphasis added)
Officers were sent to 60 Middle Street on Tuesday where they said Christina Williams, 30, allegedly left her 11-year-old child inside a vehicle.
Police said the interior temperature of the car was about 85 degrees at the time they got to the scene.
When officers opened the car doors, they said the child was responsive and not in distress, and that the car was not "excessively hot."
Police said the child requested to stay inside of the car while her mother went inside a store, and Williams was located in the store and said the same thing.
The mother is due to appear in court at the end of the month.
While an 11-year-old certainly isn't entirely self-sufficient, they're certainly capable of taking care of themselves and letting themselves in and out of a car if they're about to overheat. Many 11-year-olds babysit, for instance. There's a huge difference between leaving an infant strapped in a car seat alone in a car for an extended period of time and leaving an 11-year-old in a not-overly hot car because she asked to stay there.
Williams isn't the only mother being accused of neglecting her children by leaving them safely in a car. Nickie Milem, a woman from South Carolina, is being charged with cruelty to children after she left her children in a running, air-conditioned vehicle with her sister-in-law while she ran into a grocery store.
Child endangerment is a serious crime--but not one that seems to be committed in these cases. This is the nanny state gone insane.