The grieving parents of a 7-year-old child who died hours after being hit by a car were charged with involuntary manslaughter after allowing him and his brother, 10, to walk home unaccompanied by an adult from a nearby grocery store.
The 76-year-old driver will not face any charges.
The Food Lion store is two blocks away from their home. The parents said the children were with their mother when they asked to meet their father at the store, and she allowed them to leave
Gastonia police declined to comment to NBC News, but said in a statement that “there is no evidence of speeding or wrongdoing on the part of the driver, therefore no charges have been filed. The driver continues to be cooperative and the incident remains under active investigation by the Gastonia Police Department’s Traffic Division.”
Ivey, the mother, told WSOC before her arrest that it was the first time had she let the children walk alone. “It was just devastating, I’m still in shock, I’m in shock,” she said. “It’s hard, I haven’t stopped crying; my husband hasn’t stopped crying. Honestly, I want justice for my baby.”
I’ve never understood manslaughter as a charge, what is the obsession of sending someone to prison for an accident?
From my understanding, the idea is that it is negligent behavior that caused the accident. Basically the crime is that you behaved recklessly in a manner that led to someone’s death. I.e. If I decide to do my best Revolver Ocelot gun spinning impression and fuck it up and shoot you, or I’m doing my best Initial-D impression and bowl over a child or something, that is manslaughter. I think reducing it to just money is a bit reductive, there are plenty of other easy ways to get people into the prison pipeline too.
It makes it extra fucked that they’re charging the parents with this because of that as a crucial point of manslaughter is assigning blameworthiness. Thus, this charge, in being applied, is attributing the blame for the child’s death to the parents being negligent by checks notes walking two blocks to the store.
Edit: Swapped reckless for negligence. There is a difference legally speaking but it has been ages since I’ve taken a law class and I’m no lawyer so I mixed the two up. My examples are recklessness as opposed to negligence but I can’t be bothered to go back and amend more.
Of course, we will never see oil and gas companies get charged for macro-level manslaughter.
Or mining companies involved in multiple environmental disasters that killed the river they took their name from. Also not nearly enough compensation for all of the people that lost their homes and everything they owned
I mean of course, what they did they are not culpable for as companies are at the behest of shareholders and cannot act against them. What’s that? Apply the logic to the shareholders then? Well, they aren’t culpable as they didn’t tell the company do to this, just to maximize profits, it’s not their fault this company acted so unethically to do so. What’s that? Then the company should be to blame? Well, they aren’t culpable as they didn’t know (they did) that they were doing such atrocities. Or if they did know they were really given no choice but not to seek to cut costs and corners and the shareholders pressured them hard to do so. What’s that?..
And if you do find somewhere along the lines someone has a hard time denying culpability with our little death spiral, we have to slap a fine on them and call it a day. Jail? Well how could a company go to jail idiot, are you dumb? Break up their company? Think of all the jobs and the economy and how poor you’ll be with expensive gas. We would really truly love to but it would ruin all of us so has to be tolerated for the greater good. Besides this fine which is 0.00001% of their profits will totally deter them. (If that is the case tickets should be a few cents logically).
After reading a few more comments, they were walking home from the store, and the 10 year old was on the phone with his father.
At that age I had to walk 4 blocks to catch the bus to school, and cell phones weren’t a thing yet.
Money
punishment fetish