“I’m going to say something right now I’ve never said in my career before: we failed,” Campbell continued. "We did not do our jobs. We failed Sonya. We failed Sonya’s family and friends. We failed the community. I stand here today before you with arms wide open to ask for forgiveness.”
Great. So how did you end up hiring this known asshole, and what are you going to do to keep it from happening again?
Yes. Forgiveness demands a commitment to be better in the future. No matter how eloquently and humbly phrased, this is just “sorry” if there are no concrete actions being committed to.
To ensure this doesn’t happen again, we’ve prepared hundreds of “I’m sorry” templates that will fire off. So when our officers do heinous shit like this again, the Sorry will be within 24 hours, not a week later.
Some examples of these, you ask?
Sorry for shooting your dog.
Sorry for roughing up your grandfather.
Sorry for showing up at the robbery hours later.
Sorry for laughing when you called for aid.
Sorry for raping that woman.
Sorry for all stats about us beating our spouses and partners.
Sorry for spending millions on taxpayer money on surveillance that statistically has shown it doesn’t move the needle in public safety
Sorry for spending millions on taxpayer money on surveillance that statistically has shown it doesn’t move the needle in public safety
Hey do you have supporting links for this? I’m not asking to challenge you, I’m asking because I’d like to have some of those at hand in related/similar discussions.
God, that’s the ultimate nightmare scenario. Fucking up so bad it costs the life of your child, and it seems like no one will understand how you could have fucked it up and you’re too overwhelmed with guilt and sadness to not defend yourself but to try to make people understand how this could have happened. You’re no longer you to yourself, you’re the monster responsible for your childs death. There’s no way I could live with myself after that, though I do have suicidal thoughts at the drop of a hat
Imagine if the police used some critical thinking. Discharged from the military for his conduct, 2 DUIs (thats just when he got caught). How the hell did this guy keep his job as law enforcement after the first DUI? That should pretty much immediately take you off the force. If they can’t be trusted to drive sober and responsibly, how can we trust them as a law enforcement officer? What if they showed up drunk to work as well?
This situation could have been avoided if the police were more critical of themselves as an organization and had stricter rules and regulations for themselves.
The thing is - I’m a big believer in redemption (not in a religious sense) and self improvement. I could believe all that could be true and the guy could become a decent person at some point in the future. But you don’t (or shouldn’t) get to have a job where you have the power of life or death over everyone you interact with until after you’ve completed your redemption arc.
Yea i get that. You got 1 DUI when you were 22 and now you’re 35 and applying to be a cop? That sounds okay people can change. 3 DUIs in the 2nd year of employment as a cop? Comepletely different story.
We can’t even afford to take care of ourselves and we’re going through increasingly volatile climate change so we don’t want to bring children into the world so they have to suffer through it?
When the parent went to pick up the baby from day care after work, they realized they forgot to drop him off at day care that morning
I do not buy it, but if it is true, that poor baby was going to die from neglect and soon even if it didn’t happen then.
When my daughter was a baby, I was constantly checking on her while we were driving (at stoplights, don’t get all het up) and I was very aware when she was in the car with me.
I’m in the same boat as you. I was more understanding before I had a child. I thought, you can forget your phone, autopilot, all other excuses. But after having two, there’s no fucking way I’d ever forget them. They’re always on my mind and the first thing I think of whenever I’m doing anything. I check on my children while driving too
Edit: I understand how easy it is to get into autopilot, and having understood that I do everything I can to change my routine. We take different routes, we stop and do something on the way, etc. But I realize that I’m speaking from a place of privilege where I can do these things and not everyone can. I recognize that it can happen to me, and I pray it doesn’t. I truly am sorry for this families loss. No one should ever outlive their child.
Looks like a bunch of people (I’m guessing non-parents) disagree.
The whole idea of forgetting a baby is in the car is insane. Like I said, even if it is true, this person is not fit to take care of a baby and that baby had a good chance of dying some other way.
Diamond is a professor of molecular physiology at the University of South Florida and a consultant to the veterans hospital in Tampa.[…]
“Memory is a machine,” he says, “and it is not flawless. Our conscious mind prioritizes things by importance, but on a cellular level, our memory does not. If you’re capable of forgetting your cellphone, you are potentially capable of forgetting your child.”
“The quality of prior parental care seems to be irrelevant,” he said. “The important factors that keep showing up involve a combination of stress, emotion, lack of sleep and change in routine, where the basal ganglia is trying to do what it’s supposed to do, and the conscious mind is too weakened to resist. What happens is that the memory circuits in a vulnerable hippocampus literally get overwritten, like with a computer program. Unless the memory circuit is rebooted – such as if the child cries, or, you know, if the wife mentions the child in the back – it can entirely disappear.”
You posted the article after I posed the above comment. I have read it.
Edit: to the downvoters: should I have not read it? Because I get you downvoting the previous comments but I’m not sure what your problem is with this one.
Hickling is a clinical psychologist from Albany, N.Y., who has studied the effects of fatal auto accidents on the drivers who survive them. He says these people are often judged with disproportionate harshness by the public, even when it was clearly an accident, and even when it was indisputably not their fault.
Humans, Hickling said, have a fundamental need to create and maintain a narrative for their lives in which the universe is not implacable and heartless, that terrible things do not happen at random, and that catastrophe can be avoided if you are vigilant and responsible.
In hyperthermia cases, he believes, the parents are demonized for much the same reasons. “We are vulnerable, but we don’t want to be reminded of that. We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we’ll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don’t want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters.”
It’s Ok. I think it’s easy to dismiss obvious situations such as these, but as a tired parent I can tell you the mind will play tricks on you. I always triple check everything because I know I’m already exhausted. I can’t fault another parent for a mistake though.
Just came along. Presumably most people read your 1st comment (which is horrifyingly unempathethic, TBH) and didn’t really follow the rest of the discussion
It’s actually pretty vague, since only one of your comments seem to actually acknowledge you having read the article, and none of your comments indicate it changed your opinion (one about you having the capability to be wrong, but I can’t tell whether you’re saying you were wrong in this case, or just a general rhetorical device).
I’m not judging you here, I’m pointing out there might be a huge disconnect between what you think you’ve said and what’s actually coming across that would explain the reception you’re getting.
That’s what I’m trying to tell you, it doesn’t come across as an admission, at least to me. I get what you’re trying to say, but that’s not the first impression it conveys
Not insane at all. Child seats should be rear facing for quite a while and if the kid is asleep, they are not making any sounds. A big deviation from your routine can seriously fuck up remembering basic things. I personally have a mirror strapped to the rear headrest to avoid anything like that since I can see her every time I check my rear view mirror. But I’ve had people warm me how dangerous those are because it is an extra thing to break off in an accident. I’d rather take that risk than accidentally leave my child in a hot car.
Looks like a bunch of people (I’m guessing non-parents) disagree.
I am a parent and disagree. Surprised myself at least twice by arriving at work and seeing her still in the seat while grabbing the sun shade. Could have sworn that she had been dropped off both times.
People aren’t perfect, and something being important doesn’t mean people suddenly become perfect. The fact that it is as rare as it is now is a sign that people take it seriously, but people make mistakes no matter how important the thing is.
What kind of person forgets a baby? The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate[…]
Last year it happened three times in one day, the worst day so far in the worst year so far in a phenomenon that gives no sign of abating.
The facts in each case differ a little, but always there is the terrible moment when the parent realizes what he or she has done, often through a phone call from a spouse or caregiver. This is followed by a frantic sprint to the car. What awaits there is the worst thing in the world.
It’s a shockingly common occurrence and actually not due to neglect a lot of the time. The article posits that a large reason is because car seats were mandated to be moved to the back seat.
It’s such a painful thing, and the scary truth is that it can happen to anyone.
I’m sure we’ve all experienced instances of this, in some smaller and insignificant way.
You take a packed lunch to work. Every day for five years you’ve taken a lunch to work, without fail. Its part of your routine, you don’t even have to think about it. Get your wallet, get your keys, lunch out the fridge and into your bag, out the door.
Then one day you open your bag at lunch-time, and it’s not there. Why isn’t it there, you think? You remember putting it there like always, but then the memories of different days are all the same as each other, and it just blurs into one.
And then you remember. Just as you picked up your wallet and keys, your phone rang. And it’s your Dad, who says he just had someone call to say he needs to transfer money to keep it safe, and you’re telling him no no no Dad it’s just a scam, don’t transfer anything! And you have to go or you’ll miss the bus, and did I get my lunch, yes yes I put it in my bag like always.
But you didn’t put it in your bag. Its still sitting in the fridge at home.
And obviously a lunch is not a baby. But the principle is the same. That frightening realisation that your own brain didn’t merely forget, but actually lied to you about what really happened that morning is the same.
Seems like an insane reach to say if this baby didn’t die from that incident, they’d die from another neglect related issue.
Personally, I have a hard time judging parents in this position and I can’t say I’m a fan of them being charged. All the system cares about is the illusion of justice served in the form of traumatic retribution via prison.
Not everyone handles sleep deprivation the same. Not every baby sleeps the same amount or at regular intervals. Some babies just never seem to sleep or have weird needs that require exhausting accommodations. It’s terrible, but new babies are so vulnerable and there are so many chances for failure at the same time parents are at their most compromised. I have sympathy for the stupid, addled, forgetful mistakes anyone could make under constant, chronic exhaustion.
We were never meant to do it alone, the nuclear family is a myth.
I remember taking my 5yo kid to the park while also overthinking about work, and nearly walked home without him. I typically take both kids everywhere. But one was sick so not having both made me completely forgetful.
You’d think by now cars would have some sort of safety feature to alert parents of this. Reverse cams are the norm now, surely it’s not too much to ask for some sort of passenger sensor + temp monitor?
Man that’s crazy, people who got massive financial burdens just for going to school and have to suffer historically high housing prices alongside historically high interest rates don’t have the capacity for another massive financial burden, what ever could be causing this.
Andrew Bailey is an absolute piece of shit - this is the second time he’s majorly stalled justice for no clear purpose… just racism and political points.
I’m positive an investigation into his donors would reveal absolutely zero connections to any for-profit prison companies… it’s just completely random, I’m sure.
“Please accept our apology for this tragic event which we failed to prevent. Please also accept our apology for the next tragic event we fail to prevent.”
A set of legal memoranda known as the “Torture Memos” (officially the Memorandum Regarding Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside The United States) were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed in August 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. They advised the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Department of Defense, and the President on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques—mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation, binding in stress positions, and waterboarding—and stated that such acts, widely regarded as torture, might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the “War on Terror”.
Following accounts of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, one of the memos was leaked to the press in June 2004. Jack Goldsmith, then head of the Office of Legal Counsel, had already withdrawn the Yoo memos and advised agencies not to rely on them. After Goldsmith was forced to resign because of his objections, Attorney General Ashcroft issued a one paragraph opinion re-authorizing the use of torture. Then in December 2004, another head of OLC reaffirmed the original legal opinions.
“I’m going to say something right now I’ve never said in my career before: we failed,” Campbell continued. "We did not do our jobs. We failed Sonya. We failed Sonya’s family and friends. We failed the community. I stand here today before you with arms wide open to ask for forgiveness.”
Sounds nice, and likely sincere, but you did all those things before he killed her, when you hired and retained a man with the authority to kill with the history and issues he had. How about we stop waiting for cops to execute someone before we scrutinize them?
It makes me wonder, why are the religious obsess with abortion when the US allows divorce, even though the Bible forbids it? Why not campaign on striking down divorce as well?
it’s always about control, forcing women to have kids to carry on religion. once they’re an adult, divorce doesn’t matter because they don’t care, you’re an adult. once the baby is born, they couldn’t care less. it’s also about punishment. a man can’t be a whore, but if a woman gets pregnant, especially out of wedlock, she’s a whore and deserves it.
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