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I know what the author is getting at but he frames the article like he agrees with the State charging the parents with involuntary manslaughter, which, barring

by nluken 1y ago

I know what the author is getting at but he frames the article like he agrees with the State charging the parents with involuntary manslaughter, which, barring some detail not included in the linked NYT piece, seems ridiculous to me. The death of a 7 year old is a tragedy. Why do we then need to feel the need to hit bereaved parents with a manslaughter charge? Either there's something missing from the story or we're blaming a systemic issue on individual negligence.

noah_buddy 1y ago
I don’t think that’s a reasonable takeaway considering the follow through to the end of the article where he states that the environment is the culprit. If anything, I think his supposition is that any one of innumerable actors are just as a guilty as the parents but that our system must reduce scope to find a specific culprit and charge them with something. I don’t think the author would agree with charging the parents with manslaughter, but I think the implication is that they were in some sense negligent considering the environment in which they live.
- tantalor 1y ago
  > they were in some sense negligent considering the environment in which they live Criminal negligence involves a "gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation". Given the 7-year-old was escorted by a 10-year-old, I think that alone demonstrates a reasonable level of care was taken to protect the younger child. If the streets are too dangerous for a 10-year-old to cross safely, then you need to look a lot deeper for the true source of the risk.
  - karmakaze 1y ago
    Yes, this is what caught my eye: > West Hudson Boulevard is a high-speed arterial road with narrow sidewalks, a tiny median, and no truly safe crossings. Even a healthy, alert adult is taking their life in their hands by walking to that store. For a child, it’s playing the worst kind of roulette. The fact that it did have a sidewalk, even a narrow one means that it's meant for walking. If it's unsafe then the existence of the sidewalk is only asking for trouble. It either has a sidewalk and is safe, or it isn't safe and shouldn't have a sidewalk. Having a sidewalk and being unsafe is the fault of the city/construction not the user. Claiming a child was playing with roulette amounts to it also implying that lethal roulette games for kids is something that should be legal.
    - alistairSH 1y ago
      Agreed. The sidewalk is not fit for purpose - too narrow, adjacent to high-ish speed traffic, frequent turns into shopping plazas, few/no pedestrian crossings, and no sidewalk on the opposite side of the road, nor on many intersecting roads.
  - alistairSH 1y ago
    The street is, in fact, too dangerous for a 10-year-old, or even an adult. There's a skinny sidewalk on one side. No sidewalk on the other. No signaled crossings for blocks. High-ish speed traffic. Given an option, nobody would walk that particular stretch of highway. Should the parents have been charged? Probably not (unless there are details missing from the artcile). Should we reconsider how we build our suburbs? Absolutely.
    - paleotrope 1y ago
      There's a signaled crossing right at the intersection? https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2348779,-81.2052672,3a,75y,270h,82.58t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1swaIFejGMKKLMHkinDc8zAg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D7.420559569165647%26panoid%3DwaIFejGMKKLMHkinDc8zAg%26yaw%3D270!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDgxNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2348779,-81.2052672,3a,75y,2...
      - alistairSH 1y ago
        Yes, but not to the SW corner of Hudson/Lyon. If you happen to live off Taylor, on the south side of Hudson, there's no way to get there.
omnicognate 1y ago
On the contrary, he makes it pretty clear he doesn't agree with it. > So we do the next best thing for our consciences: we blame the victims. We prosecute the parents, demonize the driver, or scold the pedestrian for “not being careful.” And in doing so, we avoid indicting the real culprit: the American development culture that produced this environment.
- nluken 1y ago
  It came across more mixed to me. It seemed like he spent the whole article making the case for negligence and then took it back at the end.
  - pixl97 1y ago
    Hence why people should read entire articles instead of just headlines and bites of it.
    - IAmBroom 1y ago
      Or why article writers should present cohesive, well-structured thoughts.
runako 1y ago
> there's something missing from the story The missing piece is a picture of the parents. The author argues that the system needs to lay blame somewhere, and the parents present as a soft target.
roncesvalles 1y ago
I'm not a lawyer so I can't comment on the charge itself but as a lay citizen, after reviewing Street View, the parents are definitely at fault. That area is not walkable and I wouldn't trust a 7 year old to go there alone, period. And then to allow them to jaywalk at the spot where the kid was struck is downright unconscionable. And the median looks like it's easy to lose your balance over (I suspect that's what really happened). I'm not generally against the notion of letting a 7 year old walk alone in public but this isn't some cornerstore at the end of a 25mph residential street. This is basically a highway. Although the speed limit on that stretch is 45mph, I'm pretty certain drivers would be hitting 60 there since the road leading into it looks like a 60 road.
- refulgentis 1y ago
  Saw enough comments like this with unbelievable details that I went and figured out how to see it. Here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aEjjXcmDDaFKtivR9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/aEjjXcmDDaFKtivR9 We are rounding a surface street with a 45 limit to a highway at 60 and then pretend its obviously unsafe. This is obviously wrong, given the crosswalks. Also, we have 0 idea if the child was allowed to jaywalk. We know they were on the phone with the older one at at least some point. That's all. It's a tragedy, but, hard to get my head to the idea that its manslaughter that both parents are culpable for. As noted in coverage, it's an odd gap compared to how unsecured guns are treated.
  - amluto 1y ago
    > This is obviously wrong, given the crosswalks. If you’ve marked the right spot, I count one single intersection within credible walking distance that has crosswalks at all, and it only has crosswalks in two (!) of the four places where they ought to be. I guess that, if you happen to be at the SW corner of Lyon and W Hudson, then you’re just stuck there? There’s even a “SCHOOL” marking without a crosswalk a short distance to the south.
    - refulgentis 1y ago
      Lots packed in here. I don't know how to interlocute with it without being straightforward, but I'm nervous, I think you'll be upset and people will think there's more disputable here than there is and I'm just being mean. I apologize in advance. > one single intersection What other roads did you find that intersect that are relevant? > within credible walking distance Let's put some ground beneath the possible skew I may have injected by just assuming it was a credible walking distance: 2.5 minutes at 2.5 mph. 557 feet from leading edge of crosswalk to trailing edge of supermarket, via Google Maps. Taking the 2.5mph low range for human walking speed, that's t = 557 ft / (2.5 × 5280 ft/hr) ≈ 0.04219 hr = 151.8 s = 2.5 min. > I guess that, if you happen to be at the SW corner of Lyon and W Hudson, then you’re just stuck there? I guess that too! Does it obscure or shed light to talk about an unrelated path when discussing whether parents should be charged for manslaughter? I don't like suburban traffic infrastructure either, just, think we might have gotten a bit into that in a way that makes me want to make sure we're also signalling we're not talking about the parents anymore, or at least, if we are, I want to make sure it's clear what facts we're using when talking about it, at least for the audience. > There’s even a “SCHOOL” marking without a crosswalk a short distance to the south. What's a SCHOOL marking? Are you discussing the school speed limit sign? Do SCHOOL markings or speed limit signs denote an intersection immediately adjacent to the sign / SCHOOL marking? If not, why does this one need a crosswalk? AFAICT the limit sign is on the same side of the street as the school, with a sidewalk.
aaronbaugher 1y ago
I served on a grand jury a while back, and one of the few cases that wasn't a slam dunk was one where a woman's baby smothered while in bed with her and under the covers, possibly while the mother was using someone else's prescription drugs. Some of us were queasy at the idea of potentially putting a parent in prison, thinking that losing your own child and carrying that guilt was punishment enough, plus the question of what would happen to her other children, who by all accounts were well cared for (she was a single parent with no father in the picture). We quizzed the prosecutor about it, and he said he understood that, but, as he put it, "A child is dead." He hoped to use the seriousness of the charge to get the mother to accept counseling and supervision as part of a plea deal; but his office couldn't just let it go, which is what a lesser charge effectively would do in my state. After he explained that, he got the indictment. Maybe this prosecutor is thinking the same way.

by nluken 1y ago

noah_buddy 1y ago

I don’t think that’s a reasonable takeaway considering the follow through to the end of the article where he states that the environment is the culprit. If anything, I think his supposition is that any one of innumerable actors are just as a guilty as the parents but that our system must reduce scope to find a specific culprit and charge them with something. I don’t think the author would agree with charging the parents with manslaughter, but I think the implication is that they were in some sense negligent considering the environment in which they live.

tantalor 1y ago
> they were in some sense negligent considering the environment in which they live Criminal negligence involves a "gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation". Given the 7-year-old was escorted by a 10-year-old, I think that alone demonstrates a reasonable level of care was taken to protect the younger child. If the streets are too dangerous for a 10-year-old to cross safely, then you need to look a lot deeper for the true source of the risk.
- karmakaze 1y ago
  Yes, this is what caught my eye: > West Hudson Boulevard is a high-speed arterial road with narrow sidewalks, a tiny median, and no truly safe crossings. Even a healthy, alert adult is taking their life in their hands by walking to that store. For a child, it’s playing the worst kind of roulette. The fact that it did have a sidewalk, even a narrow one means that it's meant for walking. If it's unsafe then the existence of the sidewalk is only asking for trouble. It either has a sidewalk and is safe, or it isn't safe and shouldn't have a sidewalk. Having a sidewalk and being unsafe is the fault of the city/construction not the user. Claiming a child was playing with roulette amounts to it also implying that lethal roulette games for kids is something that should be legal.
  - alistairSH 1y ago
    Agreed. The sidewalk is not fit for purpose - too narrow, adjacent to high-ish speed traffic, frequent turns into shopping plazas, few/no pedestrian crossings, and no sidewalk on the opposite side of the road, nor on many intersecting roads.
- alistairSH 1y ago
  The street is, in fact, too dangerous for a 10-year-old, or even an adult. There's a skinny sidewalk on one side. No sidewalk on the other. No signaled crossings for blocks. High-ish speed traffic. Given an option, nobody would walk that particular stretch of highway. Should the parents have been charged? Probably not (unless there are details missing from the artcile). Should we reconsider how we build our suburbs? Absolutely.
  - paleotrope 1y ago
    There's a signaled crossing right at the intersection? https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2348779,-81.2052672,3a,75y,270h,82.58t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1swaIFejGMKKLMHkinDc8zAg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D7.420559569165647%26panoid%3DwaIFejGMKKLMHkinDc8zAg%26yaw%3D270!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDgxNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2348779,-81.2052672,3a,75y,2...
    - alistairSH 1y ago
      Yes, but not to the SW corner of Hudson/Lyon. If you happen to live off Taylor, on the south side of Hudson, there's no way to get there.

omnicognate 1y ago

On the contrary, he makes it pretty clear he doesn't agree with it. > So we do the next best thing for our consciences: we blame the victims. We prosecute the parents, demonize the driver, or scold the pedestrian for “not being careful.” And in doing so, we avoid indicting the real culprit: the American development culture that produced this environment.

nluken 1y ago
It came across more mixed to me. It seemed like he spent the whole article making the case for negligence and then took it back at the end.
- pixl97 1y ago
  Hence why people should read entire articles instead of just headlines and bites of it.
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    Or why article writers should present cohesive, well-structured thoughts.

runako 1y ago

> there's something missing from the story The missing piece is a picture of the parents. The author argues that the system needs to lay blame somewhere, and the parents present as a soft target.

roncesvalles 1y ago

I'm not a lawyer so I can't comment on the charge itself but as a lay citizen, after reviewing Street View, the parents are definitely at fault. That area is not walkable and I wouldn't trust a 7 year old to go there alone, period. And then to allow them to jaywalk at the spot where the kid was struck is downright unconscionable. And the median looks like it's easy to lose your balance over (I suspect that's what really happened). I'm not generally against the notion of letting a 7 year old walk alone in public but this isn't some cornerstore at the end of a 25mph residential street. This is basically a highway. Although the speed limit on that stretch is 45mph, I'm pretty certain drivers would be hitting 60 there since the road leading into it looks like a 60 road.

refulgentis 1y ago
Saw enough comments like this with unbelievable details that I went and figured out how to see it. Here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aEjjXcmDDaFKtivR9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/aEjjXcmDDaFKtivR9 We are rounding a surface street with a 45 limit to a highway at 60 and then pretend its obviously unsafe. This is obviously wrong, given the crosswalks. Also, we have 0 idea if the child was allowed to jaywalk. We know they were on the phone with the older one at at least some point. That's all. It's a tragedy, but, hard to get my head to the idea that its manslaughter that both parents are culpable for. As noted in coverage, it's an odd gap compared to how unsecured guns are treated.
- amluto 1y ago
  > This is obviously wrong, given the crosswalks. If you’ve marked the right spot, I count one single intersection within credible walking distance that has crosswalks at all, and it only has crosswalks in two (!) of the four places where they ought to be. I guess that, if you happen to be at the SW corner of Lyon and W Hudson, then you’re just stuck there? There’s even a “SCHOOL” marking without a crosswalk a short distance to the south.
  - refulgentis 1y ago
    Lots packed in here. I don't know how to interlocute with it without being straightforward, but I'm nervous, I think you'll be upset and people will think there's more disputable here than there is and I'm just being mean. I apologize in advance. > one single intersection What other roads did you find that intersect that are relevant? > within credible walking distance Let's put some ground beneath the possible skew I may have injected by just assuming it was a credible walking distance: 2.5 minutes at 2.5 mph. 557 feet from leading edge of crosswalk to trailing edge of supermarket, via Google Maps. Taking the 2.5mph low range for human walking speed, that's t = 557 ft / (2.5 × 5280 ft/hr) ≈ 0.04219 hr = 151.8 s = 2.5 min. > I guess that, if you happen to be at the SW corner of Lyon and W Hudson, then you’re just stuck there? I guess that too! Does it obscure or shed light to talk about an unrelated path when discussing whether parents should be charged for manslaughter? I don't like suburban traffic infrastructure either, just, think we might have gotten a bit into that in a way that makes me want to make sure we're also signalling we're not talking about the parents anymore, or at least, if we are, I want to make sure it's clear what facts we're using when talking about it, at least for the audience. > There’s even a “SCHOOL” marking without a crosswalk a short distance to the south. What's a SCHOOL marking? Are you discussing the school speed limit sign? Do SCHOOL markings or speed limit signs denote an intersection immediately adjacent to the sign / SCHOOL marking? If not, why does this one need a crosswalk? AFAICT the limit sign is on the same side of the street as the school, with a sidewalk.

aaronbaugher 1y ago

I served on a grand jury a while back, and one of the few cases that wasn't a slam dunk was one where a woman's baby smothered while in bed with her and under the covers, possibly while the mother was using someone else's prescription drugs. Some of us were queasy at the idea of potentially putting a parent in prison, thinking that losing your own child and carrying that guilt was punishment enough, plus the question of what would happen to her other children, who by all accounts were well cared for (she was a single parent with no father in the picture). We quizzed the prosecutor about it, and he said he understood that, but, as he put it, "A child is dead." He hoped to use the seriousness of the charge to get the mother to accept counseling and supervision as part of a plea deal; but his office couldn't just let it go, which is what a lesser charge effectively would do in my state. After he explained that, he got the indictment. Maybe this prosecutor is thinking the same way.