Idiot mom who left baby in hot car with pit bull must be jailed

There are mistakes parents make. There are bad decisions.

And then there is whatever this was.

According to authorities, a New Jersey woman left her infant child and her dog inside a parked vehicle while she went shopping. Not for a minute while paying for gas. Not while running back into the house to grab forgotten keys.

SEE ALSO: NJ mom accused of leaving her toddler in a sweltering car

Photo by Jeff Siepman on Unsplash

Shopping. On a hot day when the temperature outside of the car was 95 degrees.

With a baby. And a dog

It happened in Middletown at 3:45 p.m. outside of the TJ Maxx on 35. Police received a report and officers arrived, finding the baby crying and sweating in the backseat, and according to authorities, they removed the 1-year-old from the car and got the child into air conditioning in their patrol car.

Police say emergency medical arrived and determined the baby boy didn't need hospitalization. Police got there in time, thank God.

At some point, we have to stop treating behavior like this as a lapse in judgment and start treating it like what it is: reckless endangerment that could easily end in a funeral

SEE ALSO: Hot car deaths: The simple rule every NJ parent needs 

Photo by Jerome on Unsplash

Here’s the part that makes me even angrier

Reports say the dog was a pit bull. Before the pit bull owners come flooding my inbox, save it. This isn’t about whether pit bulls are good dogs or bad dogs. Most are fine.

But you know what isn’t fine?

Leaving any dog trapped in a sweltering vehicle with a helpless infant. Heat stresses animals. Heat stresses people. Heat can cause panic, confusion, agitation, and unpredictable behavior. The baby wasn’t just trapped in a hot car. The baby was trapped in a hot car with a large dog that was also suffering in that heat.

How many layers of terrible decision-making are we supposed to excuse?

Stories like this are exactly why automakers now spend money developing warning systems, sensors, alarms, and reminder technology designed to prevent people from leaving children in vehicles. Every new safety feature adds cost. Every added system gets passed on to consumers.

Photo by Adhitya Sibikumar on Unsplash

Why?

Because a small percentage of adults continue doing things so stupid, so obviously dangerous that no warning label should be necessary.

I don’t want another mandatory dashboard alert. I don’t want another government awareness campaign.

I want consequences. Real consequences.

Because if a child or that dog had died, nobody would be calling this a mistake. We’d be calling it a tragedy. The only difference is luck. Luck should not determine whether someone is held accountable.

An example needs to be made. Not because punishment fixes stupidity. It doesn’t.

But because society has an obligation to make crystal clear that leaving a baby and a dog in a hot car is not an accident, not a parenting oopsie, and not something that gets brushed away with probation.

People who create this level of danger for a helpless child should expect to lose more than a shopping trip.

They should lose their freedom. Upon conviction, this woman should be in jail for years.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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