Dad Who Left Son in Hot Car Charged With Murder and Child Cruelty

Fox News Insider ^ | June 26, 2014 | Staff

[lbryce]

A Georgia man has been charged in the death of his 22-month-old son after he left the boy in a hot car for seven hours. Justin Ross Harris told police that he forgot to drop his son off at daycare before going to work.

However, investigators say they have evidence that indicates Harris is lying. Sources tell FOX 5 Atlanta that someone used his work computer to search how long it would take for an animal to die in a car.

[Mastador1]

i say if he did research this, we lock him in the hot car until he’s dead.

Normally I would say that no animal deserves that, but if as you say it turns out that he did research it, I would classify him as a special kind of animal and withdraw my objections. With one caveat that is, could we put a bucket or two of fire ants in the car with him for company?

[Albion Wilde]

closet case alert

[ziravan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html

[jocon307]

Thanks for the link. That is a devastating article. My heart really hurts for those people. I really think putting those car seats backwards is just an awful idea. We drove my grandson when his seat was like that and it made me nuts not being able to keep an eye on him, literally.

And yes, when they are very little you’d never know they were there with the seat backwards. I can see the point of having the child in the backseat, but the car seat should be facing forward.

[TalonDJ]

but the car seat should be facing forward.

Might as well not even bother with the car seat then. A baby small enough to need a reversed seat does not have the neck structure to survive much of an impact. YOUR peace of mind does not trump real safety.

[jocon307]

And yet, amazingly, babies have travelled millions of miles in cars, before car seats, with car seats in the front, with front facing car seats in the back.

You can’t remove every shred of danger from life and the addition of airbags, which may have improved safety overall, made things much more dangerous for kids.

I would put my child in a front facing seat, and on its belly to sleep too. Just as I did in the past.

[LucyT]

From the article:

The answer to the problem, Fennell believes, lies in improved car safety features and in increased public awareness that this can happen, that the results of a momentary lapse of memory can be horrifying.

What is the worst case she knows of?

“I don’t really like to . . .” she says.

She looks away. She won’t hold eye contact for this.

“The child pulled all her hair out before she died.”

[trisham]

Agreed. Are we to believe that he was more concerned about the possibility of a dog dying in a parked car than he was about his own child? It does seem suspicious.