Posted on 09/19/2012 1:48:05 PM PDT by grundle
EDINA, Minn. (WCCO) – An Edina woman is accused of making her 11-year-old nephew ride in the trunk of her Lexus so he wouldn’t get her car’s leather seats wet.
The boy had just been on a water ride at Valleyfair, according to the criminal complaint.
Thirty-eight-year-old Susan McCarty has been charged with child endangerment.
Witnesses called police who pulled her over.
Police say she admitted putting her nephew in the trunk because he was soaking wet and she didn’t want him on her leather seats. According to the complaint, the boy was warned inside Valleyfair that if he continued to go on water rides, he would have to ride in the trunk.
The boy’s sister told police he seemed excited about riding in the trunk and confirmed that she was the one who closed the trunk, once he was inside.
She also told them the back seat console had been folded down, leaving a hole approximately the size of a piece of paper, so the boy could get some air.
She said when he told her he was getting warm in the trunk, the air vents were adjusted to aim directly at the console hole.
The girl said she and her grandma, who was also riding in the car, had a somewhat uneasy feeling about her brother riding in the trunk but did not question the decision made by her aunt.
McCarty faces up to a year in prison and a $3,000 fine if convicted.
We used to try to sneak into the drive in movie in the trunk as well. You see people put in the trunk all the time in the movies and TV shows.
Well, you aced that quiz
My dad used to fix up old cars as a hobby, and I recall often riding in the rumble seats of those old things when I was a kid. Getting rear-ended in a rumble seat would have been bad too I guess.
Were this done to me when I was 11, I’d have an easy choice for Favorite Aunt!
A better solution would be to just cut the kid’s water rides off at the right point... he’s not in charge, she is. Or he could walk home.
Maybe so. Most states have laws that require all children under a certain age to wear seat belts. Maybe that is nanny-statism as well, maybe you should have a right to drive with your kids unbelted. He certainly was unbelted.
A trunk is not protected in an accident, most modern cars are built to use the trunk as a crumple-zone to protect the passengers. Putting a kid in the trunk was certainly a risk to the child.
The questions are, does the government have ANY business at all making ANY laws to protect children from being put in harmful situations by adults; and if SO, how do you draw the line to determine if something is “harmful enough” to be covered under the law.
Not sure whether you are in the first group. If so, nothing I say will make sense to you. You know you are in the first group if you’d let the adult allow the kid to ride on the roof of the car.
If not, you are in the second group, and we could ask — what is the most dangerous way to ride in the car would you allow before making it illegal? Would you let the kid ride on the roof if he was tied down? In the trunk? Hanging out the window? In the back seat with no seat belt?
I find most people do want to draw a line, and the argument is over where the line is drawn.
Shoot, that’s how we used to get into the drive-in theater.
Unless you're Joe Pesci and someone has told you to go get your shoe-shine box, you have no business putting anyone in the trunk of a car.
I agree with you.
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