A couple of days ago I was in a store having a picture framed when I heard a commotion. I started to walk toward the noise as did some other shoppers. We found a terrible scene. A child of about two and half was crying hysterically while being smacked around by a harridan who was shouting at her to put on her shoes. The shoes in question were a pair of tiny white sandals no bigger than a playing card which were next to her on the floor where she was sitting. As we came toward them, the adult (I dearly hope it wasn't her mother or grandmother) noticed people looking at her and picked up the little girl and her shoes and made a bee line out the door.
Somebody had looked for the store manager who came upon the scene after the woman had left the store. We inquired what the policy of the store was in situations like that and she said, there wasn't one that she knew of. It was too late to call the police because none of us had the presence of mind to take down the license number of her car.
We obviously stopped that beating, but if she was so out-of-control that she would make a scene like that in public, what does she do when there are no witnesses.
I've been pondering on what I should have done and have come up with no answer.
4 comments:
It doesn't sound as though the child was in any actual immediate danger of physical harm, and the woman didn't stick around to be lectured, so the only thing that could have been done was to report the scene to someone at some gov't agency, your choice as to which.
If the store has a security system involving cameras, it's possible that the scene was recorded, and the woman might be able to be identified in that way.
My dilemma isn't so much identifying the woman as it is identifying why I didn't take more direct action by calling 911.
I've called 911 quite a few when I've seen car accidents, a dog walking along I 95, a young woman carrying a baby with a couple of little tots hanging on to her walking in the hot sun along a little used road, an old man obviously confused stumbling along the sidewalk in a busy section of town.
In each of those cases, I felt I knew what my duty was, but the incident in the store seemed different. Perhaps it was because I wasn't in a public place and didn't want to usurp the authority of the manager who should have handled it, but I'm not proud of my actions that morning.
The indecision of what to do here in NZ would not have come up now. Here, it is actually against the law to smack a child. Legislation was passed a couple of weeks ago. The woman who does that here gets a free ride in a police car and the child is put under the care of Child Youth and Family while the background is investigated.
I had the same thing happen to me years ago erp. I was in a shop and in the background heard a child crying but took not much notice (children crying was commonplace in NZ) until I saw several women begin a sturdy trek towards the sound. One of the women, a big blonde, said to the woman who was beating her son "Leave him alone!" The women actually stood over the offensive little bag who was beating the little boy (about 3 - he had wet himself in his anguish) until they thought the situation under control. I was terribly upset but in those days (1969) there was nowhere to go. She had another little boy in a pushchair, about 18 months, who looked contented and happy. I suspect the older boy was not hers - they were maoris and maoris often changed children around. At one stage the little bag grabbed the boy by his jersey and pulled it up and his little back was striped with what looked like scars. I don't know erp. If you hit her, it is assault - she is protected. If she hits the child it is ? The problem with calling authorities is that you don't know whether there is a reasonable relationship which is better than what might happen if the child is removed.
I don't know what the law is about this. I suspect that had the store manager called them, the police would have taken action.
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