This persecution of parents who love their kids and make the rational decision to let their them wait in the car a few minutes MUST STOP. Here is the latest case, reported by Elizabeth Broadbent at ScaryMommy (which should be SCARED Mommy in this case!). The mom, Heather DeStein, 28, has a 3-month-old. She drove her husband to work, and by the time she got to he store, her baby had finally fallen asleep.
It was 36 degrees outside, and much warmer in the car, where the heater was running. The baby had on a winter onesie — “the kind made of thicker material,” Heather said. She saw there was no line inside.
So she got out of her vehicle. She locked it. And she went inside, where she kept the car in her line of sight the entire time. Heather got a donut because she hadn’t eaten yet that morning. And when she came outside in her sweatpants and sweatshirt, she saw a man standing next to her car. He was wearing tactical pants and a long-sleeved polo. “You know there’s a baby in there, right?” he said.
“Yes, I was gone for like three minutes,” she said — three minutes which were confirmed by Wawa’s security camera footage. But Heather says, “All the man did was ask for my ID and go sit in his car, which was parked two down from me, and sat there. Fifteen minutes later he came back to get some info about my address.” Then, he said to her, “It’s freezing out here. You should know better.”
Heather says, “I started crying. I was freaked out. I said, ‘Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.’ That sort of thing. I was trying to cooperate in hopes he would let me go with a warning. There’s no law against what I did. I was in shock about the whole thing.”
After that, things progressed rapidly. Another cop car showed up with two officers. According to Heather, as they charged her, one of the men said he was “a new dad, and your daughter has to be like your third appendage, but he’s made mistakes, and he understands where I was coming from.” She was technically arrested, but released into the custody of her fiancé who showed up to get her and their daughter.
But it didn’t end there.
CPS opened a case. They showed up at Heather’s house that day and asked a number of ignominious questions — about her pregnancy, her mental health, her past addiction (Heather is a 18-months-sober alcoholic, an amazing accomplishment). Finally, the worker said, in Heather’s words, “They were going to make a safety plan. [It read] 3-month-old was left alone in vehicle, unattended. Says it will not happen again, and 3-month-old will be supervised at all times.” They said they would contact her fiancé the next day, but didn’t contact him until very recently, when he was told that they were closing and dismissing the case — on CPS’s end.
Ah, but the legal case did not end. Heather is charged with “Contributing to the deliquency of a child.” The trial is set for July. And for those who believe that three minutes in a parked car can be lethal, Broadbent quotes me noting:
“If humans died because they were in an unmoving car for three minutes, we’d all be dead the first time we had to wait for a freight train to pass.”
Remember, we make SAFETY judgments based, unconsciously, on our MORAL JUDGMENTS. So if someone believes that anytime a mom leaves her child’s side she is automatically an irresponsible, immoral mom, that person ends up also believing that the unsupervised child was in enormous danger even for the briefest window. The value judgment seeps into the safety assessment. This UC Irvine study proved that.
So let’s try to consciously decouple those assessments. Hate on the mom, if you must (I hope you don’t!), but don’t claim that she endangered her child when she did nothing of the sort. – L.
UPDATE: I have deleted a comment made by someone impersonating Heather.
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66 Comments
Should alcoholic women even be breeding though? It IS a genetic disease.
Once they get it into their minds that you’re a bad parent that it. All you can hope for is that they don’t grab the kids. if they do hope for a miracle.
@concerned – Seriously? Let’s just sterilize all the addicts – food, drama, drugs, alcohol, porn, sex, and be done and then no one will have any more problems.
seriously, who made you God?
In the same line as @annie, @concern, should stupid people even be breeding?
@concerned there are quite a number of diseases that are heavily influenced by genetics (hemophilia, Tay-Sachs, Sickle Cell Anemia, just to name three) and I am sure you are not suggesting all women be tested for these (and other) diseases before being given permission to “breed”.
In terms of alcoholism, it is about 50/50 genetics vs environment (according to NIH https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/AA84/AA84.htm )
I just looked up delinquent, and it says “(typically of a young person or that person’s behavior) showing or characterized by a tendency to commit crime, particularly minor crime.” Is the baby being charged with something? How can the mom have contributed to the delinquency of a minor, if by the baby’s very nature it was not committing a crime? Best case, they could try charging her with neglect, but the fact that unattended for 3 minutes is not neglect and CPS determined it was a one-off (and therefore not neglect), renders this whole thing moot.
i assumed @concerned’s statement was meant as sarcasm.
It should be noted that a wawa is a convenience store — typically with a very small parking lot in front. It would be hard for her to lose sight of her car for very long. It’s not like she went grocery shopping. and, as @Jess pointed out– the charges don’t even make sense.
I wonder what the morality police would say had she come out with a coconut water and a luna bar rather than a donut.
It seems once the surveillance video was viewed, and the mom stated her rationale about being warmer in the car, the guy in the tactical outfit should have gone on his way. I would think CPS and the courts have plenty of real cases that they should be spending their time and taxpayers’ money on. And, of course, the parents have the expense of lawyers, etc. If it gets to court (one would hope the case would be reviewed and thrown out before that) if any judge convicts her of endangerment, s/he should be taken off the bench and get some training.
” there are quite a number of diseases that are heavily influenced by genetics (hemophilia, Tay-Sachs, Sickle Cell Anemia, just to name three) and I am sure you are not suggesting all women be tested for these (and other) diseases before being given permission to ‘breed’.”
Good Lord.
There are, in fact, a good many genetic diseases for which the carriers of said diseases should think long and hard before making children.
Note that there is nothing in this sentence that indicates that seeking “permission” is required. (or that forced sterilization is appropriate.) When you read those sorts of things into a comment that doesn’t have them already, it says more about you than it does about the person whose comment you object to.
I just defended a woman in Illinois for a 22 minutes in a store on a 55 degree overcast day while the kid was napping. I’m happy to provide legal support and do what I can.
Delinquency? now the kid is going to grow up to steal cars??
It’s ridiculous to think that you can’t leave a baby unattended for three minutes! (Gosh, I’m sure I sometimes took longer to use the bathroom when mine was little!)
That said, unless you avoid the news completely, you know the “real” danger of doing so – busybodies who will drag you into a scenario like this one.
So I grudgingly took my son into plenty of shops – not because he was likely to overheat, be kidnapped, or somehow figure out how to start the car, but to spare him the trauma of someone else assuming those things would happen and putting our family through hell.
How do we reverse this crazy trend without asking more and more parents to take the risk of legal battles?
If a person were so worried about the safety of the child, why on earth wouldn’t they just watch for a few minutes (attending the child, no?) until mom or dad returned? If it’s 3 minutes, all good. 15? Maybe. Hour or two? That’s a problem.
But that would be a lot of trouble – you know, actually understanding the situration, and it’s SO much more satisfying to see a frightened, crying mom repent her evil ways to the cops.
This whole mess is just plain disgusting, and has NOTHING to do with keeping kids safe.
While we typically think of contributing to the delinquency of a minor to involve the minor actually engaging in delinquent behavior (and that is part of it), my state contributing to the delinquency of a minor statute also has a subsection that reads “Willfully commits an act or acts or willfully fails to act when such act or omission would cause a minor to be found to be a deprived child.” I assume Heather is being charged under a similar statute.
She should’ve phoned police regarding a threatening male demanding personal information. Why on earth would anyone hand over their ID to an unidentified stranger??? Did I miss something?
“Contributing to the delinquency of a child.”?
Yeah…that three minutes of sleeping instead of being woken up and dragged around certainly made this baby more likely to … ah … to … any prosecutor please fill in the blank. I come up with nothing.
Oh wait…. it can also mean “that places children in situations that expose them to illegal behavior”. Hm…nothing here either. It says “that exposes them”, not “could expose them”. So I guess if the kid would have witnessed the stealing of the car they might have a case? Dragging them into the convenience store could have led them to witness a robbery, so that’s no good either then, is it?
I wish that people would start dealing with the real problems of the world. But that’s just too much work. Harassing parents is much easier than to catch crooks.
Oh, for goodness sakes, folks! @Concerned was employing sarcasm as a literary device to highlight the inherent absurdity of the scenario. Can we move on?
@Jen. Thanks. I snorted into my coffee about the conconut water and the Luna Bar.
Seriously though, not being a north American, I don’t know the social demographics of VA (Virginia?), but one can only imagine that it must be flush with government revenue and have the lowest crime rate of any city in the US, for taxpayers dollars to be spent on such trivial matters. Surely there are some homeless people that could be housed, or some potholes that need filling, or some schools that need new electronic whiteboards or something. Struth!
CPS bureaucrats needing to justify their jobs.
At which point, you tell him: “You first.”
Remember that IDs have personally-identifiable information–that’s why they’re called IDs. Drivers License information can be used to create fake IDs which can be used for identity theft. You don’t give that information out to some guy in a polo and tactical pants.
If he’s in law enforcement, he will be happy to show you police identification. Note all of his information–and consider verifying it–before you give him any of your information.
She probably got rolled by a mall-cop.
…And I forgot the obligatory link.
I’ll go ahead and comment on this for clarification purposes. The man was wearing a polo and tac pants but he also had other items on him and an unmarked police vehicle. As a previous officer, I knew he was a legit officer. Many officers or detectives wear this type of uniform rather than the typical police uniform. But it was quite obvious that he was an officer. He also had his badge displayed on his belt.
Also here is the subsection under contributing to the delinquency of a minor that they charged me with. The “in need of supervision” and “in need of services” part is what my lawyer said they are using.
“Willfully contributes to, encourages, or causes any act, omission, or condition that renders a child delinquent, in need of services, in need of supervision, or abused or neglected;”
Might have been an off duty cop, but I certainly would never tell someone to had over their ID unless they are sure the other person has the authority to demand it and it is a situation where they can.
When I was “caught” by a cop for leaving my kids in the car for <3 minutes, I just drove away. (Didn't give anyone my ID.) Since there is no actual law against what I did, the cop must have decided there was no point chasing me.
I hate to say we need laws to say what is NOT illegal, but this case makes it tempting. :/
I wonder if the lady would have been left alone had she taken the "I did nothing wrong" route vs. "sorry sorry sorry." Hard to say – that seems to be individual cop dependent.
I’m sorry but I see good news in this story-sort of. I’m still appalled that she’s facing charges. However, I noticed a few things.
……but he’s made mistakes, and he understands where I was coming from.” She was technically arrested, but released into the custody of her fiancé who showed up to get her and their daughter.
(no overnight jail time)
…….he was told that they were closing and dismissing the case — on CPS’s end.
(No threat to remove the child from them)
This is a very different response to what we’re used to hearing. I still believe that kids should be allowed to wait in the car at the parent’s discretion and this falls short of that. However, I like the direction the trend is going.
Of corse, if she’s actually convicted, I’ll probably change my tune. I’ll call the judge every name in the book and will probably make up a few more!
If any of these cases ever comes up near me I’d love to show up at the hearing in support of sanity and this mom. I’m envisioning big posters and signs outside the courthouse with lots of my friends (and my kids!) to get good media coverage. Can we please start listing somehow where exactly these things are occurring so folks like us can stand up and be counted? Social media can help spread the word too though I’m not usually a huge fan.
Where I live, a kid left in a car is deadly serious, to the point I would feel justified breaking a window. What’s described here is just trivializing the real problems. The mother should either be charged with endangerment, or left alone.
And I suppose then if one carries a gene for any genetic disease, one should never “breed” either? Gee, let me go back to 1988 and tell my uncle and aunt they shouldn’t have my cousin because oops! no one realized that auntie had the genes to pass on Cystic Fibrosis!
Note to self….cops hang out at doughnut shops
She obviously didn’t watch the car the whole time if she just saw the man when she got out of the store. In three minutes someone could kidnap a baby. She also just bashed her hometown and I honestly think she’s making white people look bad
@David N Brown, do you really think a parent doesn’t take into account the weather conditions when deciding to run into the WaWa for 3 minutes with the car in sight the whole time? As was pointed out above, if being in a stopped car for 3 minutes was “deadly serious” we’d all die waiting for the train to go by, or sitting at a red light at busy intersections.
“@David N Brown, do you really think a parent doesn’t take into account the weather conditions when deciding to run into the WaWa for 3 minutes with the car in sight the whole time?”
He didn’t say anything about weather.
@emily, in three minutes, lots of things COULD happen, and her baby being kidnapped is one of the least likely. Her child was not put in extra risk, period.
As to your last, baffling sentence, I have no idea why you think she’s bashing her hometown, or why even that’s a bad thing to do, or what white people (or people of any color) have to do with this at all.
“In three minutes someone could kidnap a baby.”
The possibility that a person who both *wanted* to kidnap a baby (which is a ridiculously tiny portion of the population) and had the skills to open up a locked car and get a kid out of a carseat and get away in three minutes would JUST HAPPEN to be at a given location at the time this baby was there, and that no one would notice it happening, is vanishingly small. You may as well say, “In three minutes, a sinkhole could open up under the store and swallow everyone up, so best leave the baby in the car.”
I can’t help but notice that so many of these stories are about mothers. Is it because moms are more likely to be out with the kids? Or is it because if a dad leaves his kid in the car, no one is going to confront him?
@Emily says:
“She obviously didn’t watch the car the whole time if she just saw the man when she got out of the store. In three minutes someone could kidnap a baby.”
You’ve been watching too much TV and movies. In three minutes Popalock couldn’t even get into my car.
“She also just bashed her hometown and I honestly think she’s making white people look bad”
What the–I don’t even begin to know where you’re getting this from. I didn’t see her bashing anything or even mentioning race.
“Or is it because if a dad leaves his kid in the car, no one is going to confront him?”
It is my experience that women do not hold men to the same standards as they hold other women. OF COURSE a man can’t properly care for a child. The poor dears can barely reliably care for themselves! We count it as a “success” when they come home with the same number of children they left with…
@James, weird. That’s how I measure my success following an outing with my kids.
To clarify my earlier comment, I live in the Phoenix AZ metro area, and even locals routinely underestimate how dangerous it is to leave kids and pets in hot cars. I think the general “free range” message could actually help with these situations: Teach kids that ito get out of the car if they can, try to get an adult’s attention if they can’t, and answer if an adult asks if they’re okay. The last lesson would at least spare bystanders from having to decide whether to get smashy on limited evidence.
“In three minutes Popalock couldn’t even get into my car.”
The one time I ever needed help getting into my own car, the mall-cop needed two tries, totalling about 20 seconds, to unlock the door with a slimjim. So YMMV. The fire department is even faster, because they don’t care about inflicting permanent damage. Your typical car thief or baby kidnapper probably falls somewhere between those two data points.
heather if you are equating driving drunk[by your own admission] being as dangerous as leaving a baby in a car within sight of a parent for 3 minutes please reconsider having any children.. you need to not pollute the gene pool with the gene for not being able to rate risk. I suppose you would also claim leaving the baby in the car is as dangerous as tossing it from a bridge or something equally as stupid. as for vindication for stupid choices what was stupid was the l.e.o. not being able see the baby was fine and in no danger. if you’re still claiming just sitting in the car was the danger get rid of all traffic lights so that no one else in waiting in the car that long. the cops and da are just trying to make a name for themselves and don’t care about justice or ruining an innocent person’s life only convictions.
Just so everyone knows, the person who replied as “Heather Kland” is not me. I was an alcoholic and have been sober for 18 months now. I’m not justifying my DUI at all and I went through numerous treatments for my alcoholism. I’m doing really well with that, and it has NOTHING to do with this situation.
Also, my hometown is not in Va and I don’t know why “white people” has anything to do with this?
>>She obviously didn’t watch the car the whole time if she just saw the man when she got out of the store. In three minutes someone could kidnap a baby. She also just bashed her hometown and I honestly think she’s making white people look bad<<
Hey, just checking in to say that I'm not this Emily. I think that mom was fine–it's three minutes, and the baby in the car was right there, and the few seconds she wasn't watching the car, were probably the few seconds she spent paying for her donut.
@ David
There were no heat-related issues. From the post: It was 36 degrees outside, and much warmer in the car.
I agree that leaving a child in a car on a hot day is dangerous, but the first thing you should do is stand by the car and observe. Is the child in distress? If not, wait by the car. Feel free to time your wait until the responsible adult returns.
@Liz: It was clear from the article that this was a very different climate. Down here, there’s enough service announcements that most people who witnessed this sort of thing would be concerned enough to try to figure out what was going on. But I think the same people would still have sympathy for parents, especially if they tried to minimize the risks. When there’s a real danger, most folks don’t have time to be judgy.
Can some hard statistics on hot cars be added to the stats page alongside how rare kidnappings are?
Possibly breaking it down by states, how long left and outside/inside temperature.
The internet results on the numbers tend to be from blogs, are agenda based or sensationalized news.
Bonus for a peer-reviewed scientific study comparing factors such as light/dark vehicles, # of windows contributing to being a greenhouse, parked in shade or have window shade.
The ones done by news stations are not credible because they’re set up to prove a worst-case scenario.
“Can some hard statistics on hot cars be added to the stats page alongside how rare kidnappings are?”
How about some hard facts.
First, it gets really hot inside a car, even when the outside temperature isn’t that hot.
Second, the smaller an animal is, the more difficult it is for it to regulate its internal temperature. (That is, infants and small dogs are affected by temperatures that don’t faze adult humans).
So… next up is a value judgment. If you draw the line at “fatality”, it takes a fairly long exposure to the inside of a hot car to kill a person, even a tiny one. If you draw the line at “suffering”, that starts in a little sooner.
There’s lots of variables: shade time of day, latitude, season, type of car, starting temperature. This makes it difficult to pin down exactly how long is “too long”
if she’s “contributing to the delinquency of a child,” the child would have to be found delinquent. a sleeping baby is not delinquent. a good lawyer would get her off. but it’s sad that this is happening to her in the first place.
Frankly, this kind of absurdity is why I always haul our kids out of the car and into wherever we’re going. I just don’t want to even chance having to deal with police and/or CPS because some busybody sees me leave a 3 year old in a car with A/C running and doors locked while I run the 20 feet inside the older kid’s school for 3 minutes to pick her up from after school care.
@dancing I looked up some PSA’ s from local stations and found them to be at least specific and consistent. There was agreement that cars w/ more glass hear up faster, which would apply esp to smaller cars that poorer families would be more likely own. It’s also reported that most temp increase happens in about 15 minutes, which prob means danger arises at about 20-30 min- not short, but fast enough for an adult to be delayed or distracted by other matters. As for comparison w/ kidnapping, the big difference is that this mostly affects infants and toddlers ( though I recall hearing of a disabled adult fatality), while kidnappers rarely victimize children under 6.
You are my breathing in, I have few blogs and often run out
from post :).
The big difference, I would think, in hot car fatalities or injuries would be whether the child was intentionally left, or forgotten about. How many children have been injured or killed by extreme temps being left in a car on purpose? (Besides that dad who was convicted of murdering his child that way, so not for a malicious purpose.)
Same with car theft with a child in the car. How many of those cars had the keys left in the ignition? It’s almost like media and police don’t want to break it down, because they don’t want people leaving their child in the car at all, so they withhold the information.
Diane, I agree it seems authorities, doctors, etc. withhold information from parents because they don’t want us to feel equipped to make an educated decision.
“There’s lots of variables: shade, time of day, latitude, season, type of car, starting temperature. This makes it difficult to pin down exactly how long is “too long””
Other factors to check are the UV index, size of the windows, direction cars are facing to catch the sun’s rays.
The greenhouse effect seems to be the biggest determination so compare a 1970’s Gremlin with a windowless van.
Big difference between Texas or south Florida and New England.
Many point out that amount of time tends to be hours, although less severe health risks of dehydration are sooner.
One of the few data points, as tested by Mythbusters, is that the difference between black and white cars is only about 10 degrees.
Message boards are full of anecdotal stories that black interiors or leather do get hotter but its hard finding research on how much of a factor the inside of a car plays.
There is a shortage of good non-agenda based peer-reviewed studies that are not setting out to prove either cars in summer are deathtraps or don’t heat up.
Some articles are selling a product such as comparing the effectiveness of a brand of window shade to not parking in the sun.
The few comparing multiple factors have been limited to 10 vehicles or less.
No question vehicles do warm up but under what conditions hasn’t been properly studied and/or readily available.
If anyone wants to conduct a study or knows of one along these lines, they are welcome to help.
Any proof of this story because I can’t find any
@Karina
Funny, the only coverage is from here, 3 mommy blogs, the arrest record and her mugshot.
No mention from traditional news organizations or investigational journalists.
@James Pollock:
“If you draw the line at “suffering”, that starts in a little sooner.”
The whole state of Alaska is in constant suffering, James. They need you to go save them.
Too many self-righteous idiots with cell phones have caused this to become a cultural phenomenon.
“Too many self-righteous idiots with cell phones have caused this to become a cultural phenomenon”
Self-righteous idiots yes, but what do cell phones have to do with it? Before cell phones, Wawa (and similar stores) had pay phones outside, and 911 calls were free.
@Karina
Yeah, I was looking to fact check this story. The only official source I have found is a Google search that turns up a PDF document with the arrest information, but the document appears to no longer exist. You can see a couple screenshots at https://snag.gy/1Loa40.jpg and https://snag.gy/LtCjP8.jpg
Wawa is the friendliest place inside and terrifying in the parking lot! If I trucked my four kids inside each time I grabbed a soft pretzel to satisfy their hunger during errands, one would surely die in the parking lot getting hit by the crazy speeding drivers. So I park at the pump and go inside alone to “prepay” with a soft pretzel because apparently that’s allowed without getting arrested, I hope? (Even though I’m paying at the pump with my credit card.) But parking right by the door where you can see your car (the front of every Wawa now is all glass) is so unsafe? I’ve also taught my five-year-old how to get the soft pretzels, so I wait by the car with the other three and watch her from right outside that entire windowed front. (I also watch and wave off the other patrons panic that a five-year-old is purchasing a soft pretzel alone. the horror.) seriously – this story infuriates me because I have always feared this happening at wawa. it’s absurd that I have to consider someone calling the cops on my kids safe in the car or trucking them through a dangerously busy and aggressive parking lot.
We need to abolish the Children’s Protective Services kidnap agencies. Alex Jones ( http://www.infowars.com) and other patriots have proven that they are dangerous enemies of liberty, totally contrary to principles of liberty and parental authority which must be restored completely..
There are a few items of the article which I do not understand. Assuming that the lady did not want to shoot the meddling stranger for his first offense agains liberty, decency and courtesy, why didn’t she tell him to go to hell, knee him in the groin and temporarily blind and cripple him with pepper spray for his rudeness and impertinence?
@David
Any credibility in your post is lost by promoting Wackos like Alex Jones the same day as an interview is airing calling out the lies he spreads. He is no patriot.
This site deals with facts, not conspiracies or overt politics.
It is personal, my cousin was good friends with one of the victims of an incident that he has called a hoax.
“Alex Jones ( http://www.infowars.com) and other patriots have proven that they are dangerous enemies of liberty”
Funny story about Alex Jones.
He’s undergoing a divorce with a child custody contest. The ex-wife points to the paranoid delusions that pepper his radio broadcasts as a sign that he’s not a fit parent. This, in turn, causes him to claim that that’s all just an act for the radio show; he doesn’t actually believe the weird stuff his show peddles as “fact”.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-fake-news-infowars-alex-jones-performance-artist-n747491
@danielle
“Wawa is the friendliest place inside and terrifying in the parking lot! If I trucked my four kids inside each time I grabbed a soft pretzel to satisfy their hunger during errands, one would surely die in the parking lot getting hit by the crazy speeding drivers”
Where are these located? The Wawas I’m familiar with (mostly the Allentown-Bethlehem PA area) don’t strike me as having dangerous parking lots.