A Florida babysitter was charged with child neglect after taking a baby in his stroller for a ride the bed of a pickup.
According to 911 calls, several people contacted Daytona Beach police Wednesday when they saw the stroller in the back of the truck.
"It's not something you see every day," Daytona Beach police Chief Mike Chitwood told CNN affiliate WESH. "I hope they revoke her babysitting license for that. Would you want her watching your kid?"
The babysitter, Keyona Davis, 23, said in a court appearance Thursday that she had a firm grip on the stroller and that she did not realize her actions constituted neglect.
Davis' public defender had argued that the charge of child neglect was too harsh, as the baby was unharmed.
"It's only if the pickup crashes, the child will be injured or hurt," a public defender said in court.
Davis replied, "Exactly!"
Davis said she didn't realize that police would consider what she did as "negligent."
"It's not like they give you a handbook or anything," she said.
Davis was released from jail on her own recognizance. Police are still investigating the driver of the truck and the baby's mother.
The nanny state strikes again
it's not necessarily the dumbdown of america..it's the continuing dumbdown of florida. how many MORE ignorant idiots are going to come out of the woodwork in florida. it's an epidemic...maybe it's the heat..........
My brother in the navy is stationed in Florida – he informs me you don't even need to pass Driver's Ed to get a license there. Perhaps that has something to do with it.
no, it is American in general.
Let freedom ring!! Throw her in jail!! That's the AMERICAN way.
CNN can orally copulate me with their 30 second ads just to watch a minute and a half of story. It is really getting irritating.
I agree 100%. It is so aggravating. Once in a while is more than enough, but every stinking time is too much.
If it is such a felonious danger to ride in a vehicle without a seatbelt or the back of a truck all of us baby boomers (including farmer baby boomers) would be dead and our parents would have died in jail. But we aren't and they didn't. US has turned itself into a paranoid bunch of whimps who are afraid of their own shadow, can't mind their own business and more and more seem to be living in a police state. But thank God we still have reality TV.
Absolutely! They need to mind their own business.Some cars didn't even have seat belts in the back seat in the early 60's. Boomers are alive and retireing in droves today!
Actually you are both 100% wrong. Driving fatalities have dramatically gone down since the introduction of seat belts. And real world statistics have shown significant drop in driving fatalities in states that have mandatory seat belt laws. I don't care if you don't ware a seat belt. But I would prefer your car and health insurance would not cover you if you do get into an accident without waring a seat belt. That way my insurance wouldn't keep going up for your stupidity....
OMG! I hope she NEVER has kids! Good grief! What the hell was she thinking? Oh wait. That's right: She wasn't!
Beth
Well the good news is, if Casey Anthony does in fact have more kids, we now have a babysitter for her.
LOL LOL hahahahahaha that was good!!
So I guess she also thinks it should only be illegal to drive drunk if you hurt someone.
What we don't know is: how far did she travel? How fast was the truck going? Some people are just ignorant about physics. When I was a kid, we rode in the back of grandpa's pick-up...all the time. It was fun and din't hurt anyone. If he stopped too fast and you weren't sitting down, damn your bad luck. The charges should be dropped in this case with the 'understanding' that it will NEVER happen again. However, the public just wants 'revenge' on a person they don't even know.
Um, its a law to have a child properly restrained in a baby seat INSIDE of the vehicle. where she was going or how fast is irrelevant. once that truck went from "park" to "drive" (that's that newfangled lever that has letters on it – you know, P, D, N,) the law was broken. by both babysitter and driver.
I feel sorry for the public defender. The lame excuse they came up with was embarrassing, but probably just about all they had!
It's not like they give you a handbook?
Now I know how to make my millions. write a handbook for truly stupid people.
I agree sam. I rode in the back of a truck a few times back in the day.
A stroller is a moving vehicle.
Child endangerment =crossing several busy intersections at crosswalks walking with a stroller.
Child endangerment=one of those tow able strollers behind a bicycle.
So sick of these protect other people from themselves people laws and the media sensationalizing and dramatizing this story as if they were doing 80 mph on the highway or something with a kid in the back. It was highly unlikely the child was going to get thrown at out 35mph, with other drivers being cautious and calling the cops seeing that there was kid in the back. That's better than the baby on board signs imo.
Call the internetz police sensationalize it.
http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/57588099
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH9Jjao5tfU
http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/37440402
Might as well raise kids in plastic bubbles these days.
Oh for the love of Pete. I had no idea that I was such a neglected child. My parents and grandparents had us in the back of the pickup from an early age.
That you God, thank you so much that I was born and had my childhood in a more reasonable era and not now while busybody @ssholes rule the planet in our nanny state. Yes yes, I know, something could happen, but the reality is that something could happen in most situations.
Not quite sure why I'm alive or my 3 sisters and 2 brothersfor that matter. My parents are lucky they weren't charged with neglect. I believe none of us ever had a broken bone BUT we did live very dangerously. We even played outside alone. Sometimes it was even dark outside. That was the best. We rode in the back of trucks, station wagons, etc. Might not be the safest thing in the world but a felony...... mmmmm. Scary having babies today. Don't make a mistake. Tax payers will be feeding and housing you for an extended period of time. What the hell is wrong in this country?
I agree. The good old days is no longer fondly remembering the past, it is the truth. The world stinks today. Pretty soon you will need a license in order to take a leak.
When i was a kid – the 70s – it was common. Doesn't make it right. One of my friend's older brothers was killed doing it when the truck went off the road and rolled. That was the end of me riding in the back.
There have been others. How many examples do we need?
Gimme an M! Gimme an O! Gimme an RON! What's that spell? Oh wait, she may need a handbook for this as well.
Oink!!