[nluken]

I know what the author is getting at but he frames the article like he agrees with the State charging the parents with involuntary manslaughter, which, barring some detail not included in the linked NYT piece, seems ridiculous to me.

The death of a 7 year old is a tragedy. Why do we then need to feel the need to hit bereaved parents with a manslaughter charge? Either there's something missing from the story or we're blaming a systemic issue on individual negligence.

[noah_buddy]

I don’t think that’s a reasonable takeaway considering the follow through to the end of the article where he states that the environment is the culprit. If anything, I think his supposition is that any one of innumerable actors are just as a guilty as the parents but that our system must reduce scope to find a specific culprit and charge them with something. I don’t think the author would agree with charging the parents with manslaughter, but I think the implication is that they were in some sense negligent considering the environment in which they live.

[tantalor]

> they were in some sense negligent considering the environment in which they live

Criminal negligence involves a "gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation".

Given the 7-year-old was escorted by a 10-year-old, I think that alone demonstrates a reasonable level of care was taken to protect the younger child.

If the streets are too dangerous for a 10-year-old to cross safely, then you need to look a lot deeper for the true source of the risk.

[runako]

> there's something missing from the story

The missing piece is a picture of the parents. The author argues that the system needs to lay blame somewhere, and the parents present as a soft target.

[aaronbaugher]

I served on a grand jury a while back, and one of the few cases that wasn't a slam dunk was one where a woman's baby smothered while in bed with her and under the covers, possibly while the mother was using someone else's prescription drugs. Some of us were queasy at the idea of potentially putting a parent in prison, thinking that losing your own child and carrying that guilt was punishment enough, plus the question of what would happen to her other children, who by all accounts were well cared for (she was a single parent with no father in the picture).

We quizzed the prosecutor about it, and he said he understood that, but, as he put it, "A child is dead." He hoped to use the seriousness of the charge to get the mother to accept counseling and supervision as part of a plea deal; but his office couldn't just let it go, which is what a lesser charge effectively would do in my state. After he explained that, he got the indictment. Maybe this prosecutor is thinking the same way.

[omnicognate]

On the contrary, he makes it pretty clear he doesn't agree with it.

> So we do the next best thing for our consciences: we blame the victims. We prosecute the parents, demonize the driver, or scold the pedestrian for “not being careful.” And in doing so, we avoid indicting the real culprit: the American development culture that produced this environment.

[nluken]

It came across more mixed to me. It seemed like he spent the whole article making the case for negligence and then took it back at the end.

[roncesvalles]

I'm not a lawyer so I can't comment on the charge itself but as a lay citizen, after reviewing Street View, the parents are definitely at fault.

That area is not walkable and I wouldn't trust a 7 year old to go there alone, period. And then to allow them to jaywalk at the spot where the kid was struck is downright unconscionable. And the median looks like it's easy to lose your balance over (I suspect that's what really happened).

I'm not generally against the notion of letting a 7 year old walk alone in public but this isn't some cornerstore at the end of a 25mph residential street. This is basically a highway. Although the speed limit on that stretch is 45mph, I'm pretty certain drivers would be hitting 60 there since the road leading into it looks like a 60 road.

[alistairSH]

But there's a sidewalk there. Without any thought, we should be able to assume a sidewalk is fit for purpose.

The fact that we have a sidewalk that's "obviously" not fit to purpose is a massive failure on the part of the local transit authority/DOT.

[tantalor]

> I wouldn't trust a 7 year old to go there alone

The 7 year old was not alone, he was with his older brother.

> They had sent Legend out to the grocery store with his 10-year-old brother when he stepped out in front of traffic.

https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/nc-lawmaker-bring-attentio...

[wonder_er]

'jaywalking' is a term that supports the concept of vehicular homicide.

A normal ethical system would say the obligation to not kill anyone with a vehicle is on the operator of the vehicle. The environment should also support safe handoffs between priorities.

The parents are not at fault - they were born into this shitty country. It is the road engineer, the city engineer, full stop.

Consider this book: [Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies our Transportation System](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201978334-killed-by-a-tr...)

Jaywalking is a supremacists, propagandistic term, I would propose it be excised from your vocabulary: https://josh.works/jaywalking

It was used mostly to imprison formerly enslaved people for walking around. In some american cities in the 50s and 60s, thousands of people PER YEAR were ARRESTED for jaywalking!!!!

It's how deputized slave patrols (police) can easily initiate harassment against the enslaved/formerly-enslaved class.

[refulgentis]

Saw enough comments like this with unbelievable details that I went and figured out how to see it. Here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aEjjXcmDDaFKtivR9

We are rounding a surface street with a 45 limit to a highway at 60 and then pretend its obviously unsafe. This is obviously wrong, given the crosswalks.

Also, we have 0 idea if the child was allowed to jaywalk. We know they were on the phone with the older one at at least some point. That's all.

It's a tragedy, but, hard to get my head to the idea that its manslaughter that both parents are culpable for. As noted in coverage, it's an odd gap compared to how unsecured guns are treated.