Submitted by hegegirl (not verified) on July 23, 2008 - 2:49pm.
There are so many concerns with the nature of the story in this incident.
If the police officer did not speak Spanish, how did he know that the 14 year-old asked the mother the same question that he supposedly posed? The mother might have been nodding her head to anything! She might have had no idea that she was agreeing to leave her kids with this man. That is what translators, available to police, are there for!
If the police officer did not speak Spanish, he was not able to ask the male friend if he would stay with the children until someone else arrived. He was also not able to ask when help was coming. So he was NOT sure that the children were safe in someone else's care.
I also cannot believe that if this was a group of children who were US Citizens that they would be allowed to sit on the side of a major highway, with or without an adult. Think of how many times you see a police officer waiting behind a broken down car to make sure they are safe. And this is in the middle of the day!
Lastly, nowhere in this article does it state the children themselves are undocumented immigrants. For all of the comments on this story talking about how the children and adults get what they deserve for breaking the law, perhaps you should think about the motto of police officers; to protect and to serve. It does not say "To protect and to serve legal residents" or "To protect and to serve only those from non-controversial groups of people." You do not know that these kids, who you so freely chastise, are even undocumented themselves! If they were born in the US, they are legal citizens themselves! And if even they are not, they are children- who cannot speak for themselves- and therefore need to protected and sheltered.
Leaving them on the side of the road, even if they were undocumented...even if their mother was breaking the law...even if they had someone with them who the officer "thought" was going to stay with them...should be a crime!
There are so many concerns
There are so many concerns with the nature of the story in this incident.
If the police officer did not speak Spanish, how did he know that the 14 year-old asked the mother the same question that he supposedly posed? The mother might have been nodding her head to anything! She might have had no idea that she was agreeing to leave her kids with this man. That is what translators, available to police, are there for!
If the police officer did not speak Spanish, he was not able to ask the male friend if he would stay with the children until someone else arrived. He was also not able to ask when help was coming. So he was NOT sure that the children were safe in someone else's care.
I also cannot believe that if this was a group of children who were US Citizens that they would be allowed to sit on the side of a major highway, with or without an adult. Think of how many times you see a police officer waiting behind a broken down car to make sure they are safe. And this is in the middle of the day!
Lastly, nowhere in this article does it state the children themselves are undocumented immigrants. For all of the comments on this story talking about how the children and adults get what they deserve for breaking the law, perhaps you should think about the motto of police officers; to protect and to serve. It does not say "To protect and to serve legal residents" or "To protect and to serve only those from non-controversial groups of people." You do not know that these kids, who you so freely chastise, are even undocumented themselves! If they were born in the US, they are legal citizens themselves! And if even they are not, they are children- who cannot speak for themselves- and therefore need to protected and sheltered.
Leaving them on the side of the road, even if they were undocumented...even if their mother was breaking the law...even if they had someone with them who the officer "thought" was going to stay with them...should be a crime!