No charges on parent of 3-year old in Cincinnati zoo

[Darrell KSR]

I know we've all kept up with this story...the 3-year old fell down 15-feet into a gorilla exhibit, where he was dragged through the water, and semi-protected, semi-endangered by a 450 pound lowland gorilla. The gorilla was put down by the dangerous animal response team, creating a lot of controversy.

Prosecutors were reviewing the evidence to see if the parents of the 3-year old should be charged. As the father of five, my heart broke as I saw the 3-year old being dragged through the water by the 450-pound gorilla, realizing that one errant swing, and his life would be over. I felt like slapping his mother when I heard her words on the video, but that's just me--"stay calm, Isaiah," and "I love you, baby," but I know she didn't know what to say. In the end, I don't blame her for what occurred. The Hamilton County Prosecutor got it right, IMHO.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkSLq82WEAAHtq1.jpg:large

[UKHistory]

You can't prosecute them on this issue. I hate that the gorilla was killed but I am not sure what could have been done under those circumstances.

Let the family go in peace.

[suncat05]

This sounds about right to me as well. Mom & Dad perhaps could have done a better job of keeping up with Jr.,but at the end of the day it's a 3 year old that somehow managed to get away from the parents. It's not like that hasn't happened to any of us at one time or another. And the same with us when we were kids too. All of us.
I was upset with the parents at first, but in the end this just falls under the "tragedy that never should have happened but did" story. I'm glad the child is okay, and saddened by the death of such a beautiful animal.
Kids........between them and wives we all either have lots of gray hair, or lose all of our hair. That's just life.

[Doc]

I agree that the parents should not be charged. Its not like they threw him in the enclose as punishment. I mean that would be almost as bad as leaving him in the forest.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/30/boy-disappears-after-parents-purposely-leave-him-in-forest/

[Doc]

This sounds about right to me as well. Mom & Dad perhaps could have done a better job of keeping up with Jr.,but at the end of the day it's a 3 year old that somehow managed to get away from the parents. It's not like that hasn't happened to any of us at one time or another. And the same with us when we were kids too. All of us.
I was upset with the parents at first, but in the end this just falls under the "tragedy that never should have happened but did" story. I'm glad the child is okay, and saddened by the death of such a beautiful animal.
Kids........between them and wives we all either have lots of gray hair, or lose all of our hair. That's just life.

I often lost my kids. Damnedest thing is they kept finding there way back, even when we moved.

[Darrell KSR]

I often lost my kids. Damnedest thing is they kept finding there way back, even when we moved.
Same.

[CitizenBBN]

What I found most interesting from a sociological standpoint was the reaction, and what it really underscored was the deep need of the human species to find blame for things.

I read an interesting theory that it goes to a need for control, and a need to feel that if we just plan well enough, have enough rules and procedures, that we'll be totally safe. A basic inability to accept that sometimes bad things just happen and there's nothing to be done, nothing to change, no one at fault. Just a bad thing we have to face and learn to live with.

People wanted to blame the mom, or blame the zoo for shooting him, or blame the enclosure, or blame the decision to not use a tranquilizer gun, but sometimes it's just a bad alignment of events that leads to a bad result, and when it's a one in a million event like that you don't do or change anything, you just grieve or mourn or whatever and move on.

The only way for a parent to keep a child 100% secure from running off is to put them on a harness and leash, and that's not exactly a solution I endorse. Kids often run off like that even with the most watchful and careful parents, and 99.99% of the time nothing bad happens, but once in a while it will.

I do question the enclosure a bit, but ironically part of why it's that way is the animal rights movement to put animals in a more natural habitat. Zoos in response have put in hedges and such instead of big sets of steel bars. The truth is the bars are safer, but even in those days there were still those rare events where someone was hurt by an animal or an animal had to be put down despite the bars. Sometimes bad things just happen.

[Darrell KSR]

Sometimes bad things just happen.

I begin every Business Law course I teach with an introduction to tort law. Students have this innate desire to tout "fairness" as a legal standard, when that generally doesn't relate to anything in the law. "Life's not fair," your mom told you growing up, I tell them. "And neither is law."

Law is reasonableness. The reasonable person standard. Acting reasonable under the circumstances. What steps were a reasonable precaution to take to prevent a child from getting out of your grasp/view? What steps were reasonable to prevent a child from escaping through pseudo-barriers to prevent him/her from being exposed to danger?

It is possible that all parties were "reasonable" under the circumstances. As such, with nobody's conduct falling below a reasonable standard of care, the correct party who is responsible for the "harm" that occurred is, nobody.

Sometimes bad things just happen.

I could bore the site by going into why I start with tort law, and how we discuss a short case in terms of reasonable conduct, standards of care, duties owed to others, contributory vs comparative negligence, etc., but I will use Harambe on Wednesday to discuss many of these same things, as if a lawsuit were filed, so we can analyze it. And my answer--not that it is relevant--is that it is nobody's fault. (I don't really care what "answer" they get, as long as they go through the analysis properly).

But I couldn't agree more. We, as a society, have to accept that there are times when nothing could prevent harm; and/or, that the cost to prevent the harm outweighed the reasonable burden to prevent it.

(I butchered a lot of civil law to shortcut this, and no representation is made that this applies to Ohio law, but this was just for fun anyway.)

[Darrell KSR]

5590

[kingcat]

Says a grandpa of six between the age of 1 and 10 years, it was a good call. Negligence cannot easily be proven in a one time occurrence but is usually an established pattern.

When the six are all here with me and Nana it is quite the chore to keep up. Three minutes is a very short time in real life .

[CitizenBBN]

But I couldn't agree more. We, as a society, have to accept that there are times when nothing could prevent harm; and/or, that the cost to prevent the harm outweighed the reasonable burden to prevent it.


That part needs to be sold on t-shirts to educate people. It cannot be overstated.

Because to live in a free society, and to actually LIVE and not just be gerbils in cages, you have to take a certain amount of risk, and there will be a certain amount of ill in the world from such accidents where the price to eliminate them is simply too high in either direct costs or in quality of life or in basic liberty.

Traffic fatalities and injuries is a good example. There are over 30,000 deaths per year and over 2 million injuries. Those numbers have declined steadily if slowly over the last 2 decades, probably due in large part to the improved safety of vehicles.

OK, so that's good, we've saved lives with airbags and crumple zones. But there are still 30,000 deaths.

What if I said I could cut that number in more than half, prevent a million or more injuries and save untold amounts of energy, cut CO2 and other emissions dramatically? Sounds good, but the way to do it is to limit non-essential travel. You only get so many miles a year for vacations and visiting family.

Well, if we don't embrace that solution aren't we really saying that those extra say 15,000 lives a year or 10,000 simply aren't worth the sacrifice and limitiations?

Obama and others often use that "it's worth it if one life is saved" argument. Well guess what, it's NOT worth any price to save just one life, and that's just the way the world works. To simply live and be free as a people we have to accept a certain level of risk.

If we want zoos we have to accept there will be a tragedy at one now and again. If we want to let our children outside and not have them in leash restraints we have to accept one will run off and get in trouble once in a while. we'll do our best to protect them and have safe zoos, but we will never completely eliminate tragedy. Only the good Lord can possibly have such power, not us mere mortals.

[BigBluePappy]

Says a grandpa of six between the age of 1 and 10 years, it was a good call. Negligence cannot easily be proven in a one time occurrence but is usually an established pattern.

When the six are all here with me and Nana it is quite the chore to keep up. Three minutes is a very short time in real life .

Husband of one, father of two, Pappy to eight (10 actually but two don't/can't have anything to do with me) and a greatgrandfather to one with another on the way. When all the kids, grandkids and greatgrandkids are over (I love it when they are) it is more than I personally can keep up with. Especially watching my teenage granddaughters when they bring their beaus...
Not an ugly one in the bunch, like my father in law always said.

[badrose]

That part needs to be sold on t-shirts to educate people. It cannot be overstated.

Because to live in a free society, and to actually LIVE and not just be gerbils in cages, you have to take a certain amount of risk, and there will be a certain amount of ill in the world from such accidents where the price to eliminate them is simply too high in either direct costs or in quality of life or in basic liberty.

Traffic fatalities and injuries is a good example. There are over 30,000 deaths per year and over 2 million injuries. Those numbers have declined steadily if slowly over the last 2 decades, probably due in large part to the improved safety of vehicles.

OK, so that's good, we've saved lives with airbags and crumple zones. But there are still 30,000 deaths.

What if I said I could cut that number in more than half, prevent a million or more injuries and save untold amounts of energy, cut CO2 and other emissions dramatically? Sounds good, but the way to do it is to limit non-essential travel. You only get so many miles a year for vacations and visiting family.

Well, if we don't embrace that solution aren't we really saying that those extra say 15,000 lives a year or 10,000 simply aren't worth the sacrifice and limitiations?

Obama and others often use that "it's worth it if one life is saved" argument. Well guess what, it's NOT worth any price to save just one life, and that's just the way the world works. To simply live and be free as a people we have to accept a certain level of risk.

If we want zoos we have to accept there will be a tragedy at one now and again. If we want to let our children outside and not have them in leash restraints we have to accept one will run off and get in trouble once in a while. we'll do our best to protect them and have safe zoos, but we will never completely eliminate tragedy. Only the good Lord can possibly have such power, not us mere mortals.

Well said, Sir.