Parents leave children in car to attend wine tasting
Parents leave children in car to attend wine tasting
A mother and father were arrested Saturday in Washington D.C. after leaving their toddlers inside a locked, freezing car without proper clothing while they sipped wine just a few hundred feet away.
A passerby spotted a two-year-old girl crying in a locked car with her one-year-old brother. The young boy had no socks or shoes and neither child had hats or gloves in the freezing car. Temperatures in D.C. when the children were found were just above freezing.
The children's parents, Jennie Chang, 46, and Christopher Lucas, 41, were 400 feet away in the upscale wine bar Ris. The pair told police they were monitoring the vehicle using an iPhone and periodic checks on the children; the restaurant manager told police the couple had been inside for an hour. When police opened the car, they found an iPhone that had been running for 58 minutes, according to The Washington Post .
Both were charged with two counts of attempted child neglect. They are not allowed to have contact with their children. If convicted they both face $10,000 in fines and/or 10 years in prison.
A passerby spotted a two-year-old girl crying in a locked car with her one-year-old brother. The young boy had no socks or shoes and neither child had hats or gloves in the freezing car. Temperatures in D.C. when the children were found were just above freezing.
The children's parents, Jennie Chang, 46, and Christopher Lucas, 41, were 400 feet away in the upscale wine bar Ris. The pair told police they were monitoring the vehicle using an iPhone and periodic checks on the children; the restaurant manager told police the couple had been inside for an hour. When police opened the car, they found an iPhone that had been running for 58 minutes, according to The Washington Post .
Both were charged with two counts of attempted child neglect. They are not allowed to have contact with their children. If convicted they both face $10,000 in fines and/or 10 years in prison.
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Both were charged with two counts of attempted child neglect. They are not allowed to have contact with their children.Those poor kids...
Some people just shouldn't have children...
Wait, Hal... Someone had to call the police, didn't they? Or did they just show up and notice? Maybe another thing to add would be for people to mind their own business.
yet, in this case, I think an innocent bystander did the right thing.
And then there are hundreds of people that would make excellent parents, but can't have children...
Some people just shouldn't have children...That's for sure!!
Well, I certainly see your point-- but they have been charged? Not convicted? I'm sure a decent lawyer will point out your concerns. They probably won't get that, and shouldn't. But something should happen to them. What would you think is fair punishment? Just asking, not being contentious.
I left my crying son in a car once. He was 4 years old and was tearing out a strip because I wouldn't buy him a toy he wanted. Way past the age when he should have been doing that. I had to pick up a prescription before the drug store closed. It was a warm day, and I left the car running, the aircon on, and ran in to get my prescription. He was unharmed, but I will never do it again. It wasn't lack of concern, it was having to be in two places at the same time...
The young boy had no socks or shoes and neither child had hats or gloves in the freezing car. Temperatures in D.C. when the children were found were just above freezing.
I don't think that foster care is the answer in this case, either.
Perhaps pay a fine, or take parenting classes? I was at my wit's end and had it drilled into my head to not miss a dose of medicine... Different than doing on purpose to go and taste wine...
I can only agree mimi...
Exactly. Now you know what nightmares I have because I left my son for 5 minutes to get my medicine. Sigh!
So true!!
I feel bad for people that are raising children in this day and age. My youngest daughter has 3 beautiful girls and my oldest is expecting a boy at the end of April...what will this world be like when he gets older????
Thank you...I do too! My grand daughters are 12, 13 and 14..I worry about then also..kids grow up way too fast and are exposed to tings that they shouldn't know about until they are older.
Here's what probably happened - the well-to-do parents probably intended to take their kids inside. The two year old threw a fit in the car, so left him in the car with the baby who was sleeping, and they thought that a video monitor would be sufficient. It was just a bad decision, like any number of bad decisions good parents make all the time. Nobody was hurt, nobody deserves to go to jail, and certainly nobody deserves to have their kids taken away from them.
Hal....the incident with your grandchildren was unavoidable, these parents planned on leaving the children in the car.
And as I stated above, my mom had options - her situation was not entirely unavoidable, just very inconvenient. We all occasionally do things that we aren't necesarilly proud of.
My daughter urgently needed someone to pick up her kids from daycare because she couldn't make it there before they were to close. Mom hopped in the car and drove ten minutes to get there just in time Your mother didn't have time to stop and purchase a car seat, so, it was unavoidable, so she had no choice.