TenuredVulture wrote:I seem to remember something like this happened in New York 30 years ago. Except it was a bear or something, not a gorilla. And, I think the kid and the bear both died.

Hopefully the parents were summarily punished.

TenuredVulture wrote:And, I think the kid and the bear both died.

That's fair

TenuredVulture wrote:I seem to remember something like this happened in New York 30 years ago. Except it was a bear or something, not a gorilla. And, I think the kid and the bear both died.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/20/nyreg ... k-zoo.html


TWO bears GOD DAMNIT!

Yes, it's hard to take care of more than one kid at a time. But sometimes, there are times when you try and not be distracted. Like when it's possible your kid can fall into a gorilla habitat.

Gain, I don't know if she should be charged. Just responded to the dumb "shit happens" comment

it hasn't been verified if the comment was dumb. it's, like, your opinion. things happen and it's not always a crime when they do.

pacino wrote:it hasn't been verified if the comment was dumb. it's, like, your opinion. things happen and it's not always a crime when they do.

Right, everything we're saying is our opinion

It's possible for all sorts of horrible shit to happen. Most of it astonishingly unlikely. Like falling into a gorilla habitat.

Slowhand wrote:It's possible for all sorts of horrible shit to happen. Most of it astonishingly unlikely. Like falling into a gorilla habitat.

Plenty of prior instances of humans falling into animal habitats that make it not "astonishingly unlikely"

Oh OK

I mean, toddlers are squirmy and its best not to hold one near a gorilla pit if you're prone to distraction

My cousin pushed me into a trout hatchery tank when I was little. Horrifying. Pure terror, still scares me.

And i don't think one person here has called for her to be charged with anything.

702 just wanted them to be sued so I guess you're correct there.

mozartpc27 wrote:

pacino wrote:by most accounts she was busy with other children, the child went off and did it on his own. there's really nothing she could've done to prevent it outside of strapping him to her person.

sometimes stuff happens.

Agree. In general, I think there is a rush to blame parents and criminalize behavior that is, as often as not, part of life. Nobody keeps their eyes on their children every second of every day. I don't understand the need to charge someone here. The mom's punishment was having the living shit scared out of her and having herself made a spectacle.

These views are far too nuanced and reasonable for the twitter/facebook age.

I cant believe how many different interest groups woth strong opinions there are. Ive seen racists ask if gorillas in other zoos are going to loot, PETA nutjobs that seemingly want the mom dead, moms comparing this to looking away for a second to look at a painting in a museum, and one weirdo who wants her sued

In 22 minutes I turn 50 years old

The Dude wrote:I cant believe how many different interest groups woth strong opinions there are. Ive seen racists ask if gorillas in other zoos are going to loot, PETA nutjobs that seemingly want the mom dead, moms comparing this to looking away for a second to look at a painting in a museum, and one weirdo who wants her sued

i think it's more that this incident is quite unique in that it brings a lot of the more vocal and large radical groups. the big 3 seem to be racists, PETA hardliners, and Concerned Moms and this one gets to all of them, although the racists had to be a bit creative to get there. if only they could have somehow pissed of MRAs and SJWs we'd have a total shit storm.

i just don't get that this is the thing that people are willing to get upset over(mostly referring to your 3rd example here). are you going to get infuriated at every instance of bad parenting in the world? you'll go insane.

Slowhand wrote:If the kid fell into an alligator pit and they shot and killed a gator nobody would be talking about charging the parents. It certainly sucks that it happened, but the only reason people are up in arms wanting to punish the parents is because it was a cute, endangered gorilla instead of an ugly, scary reptile.

This is the right line of thinking. More realistically, if the kid had simply wandered off and gotten separated from Mom for, let's say an hour - and it took a couple of zoo staffers an hour to find the kid, but then the kid was found and everything was OK - it would never occur to anyone to charge the Mom. In fact, I'm sure that exact scenario happens at least once every couple of months. Kids get separated from their parents in big, open, public spaces where there are lots to distract the kids and the parents, especially when the parents in question have more than 1 or 2 kids. How many of us wandered off on our parents at some point in their youths? I know I did (at the Village Mall in Hatboro). I equally know that my Mom was no criminal.

It's always frightening for the parents when it does happen, and stressful for employees of whatever establishment it happens in, but it happens all the time. That this particular kid managed to work his way into the gorilla habitat rather than just wandering off to look at an another animal on another side of the zoo is happenstance - the cause is the same. If one is a crime, they both are. But one is obviously not; it's only because things went particularly wrong in this case that anyone thinks that this is or should be. Unless you are willing to charge every parent who ever has to call for help to find a kid who wandered off, regardless if the kid is found safe or not, you can't charge the Mom in this case. If the zoo wants to sue the Mom for the loss of the gorilla, that's another matter - but of course I'm sure she'll get a lawyer who will advise her to sue the zoo for not properly securing the habitat so what happened couldn't happen.

I of course think, as I said in my original post, that in general as a society we've taken the blame culture too far. Recently I read about a child who managed to shoot himself with his father's gun, which he found under his father's pillow. The father kept it there so it would be at the ready should he need it to defend his home. I'm sure there were laws against this - impractical laws, because, as many have pointed out, having a gun for protection that has to be locked away, unloaded, with a safety on is of little value when you NEED it - but he defied them in order to make the gun more useful as an object of self-defense. Of course, authorities will be charging him with various counts of negligence.

This, to me, is completely unnecessary. Besides being an object lesson in why you should NOT have a gun in a house with children, this is another example where the consequence is the punishment. Clearly, the father did not want his child to die. This, it can therefore be assumed, is totally devastating to him. What is the earthly point of charging him? You can't hurt him any worse than he's been hurt without killing him. I am quite certain this guy will never keep a loaded gun in the house again, even if he never does spend a day in jail.

threecount wrote:In 22 minutes I turn 50 years old

uhhhh happy birthday?