Child Beaten to Death in Front of Motorists
 

What would you have done if you had seen this unfold?

06/15/2008 18:24:50 EST Police: Officer kills man who beat child to death

Associated Press:

A 27-year-old man was fatally shot by police as he kicked, punched and stomped a young toddler to death in front of horrified motorists who tried to stop the attack on a dark country road, authorities said.

Investigators on Sunday were trying to establish the relationship between the suspect and the child they say he killed Saturday night. The Stanislaus County coroner said the boy appeared to be between 1 and 2 years old based on his size, according to county sheriff's deputy Royjindar Singh.

"It's been a long night of wondering, 'Why?' - not only for the officers and the passers-by who stopped and tried to help out, but for anyone. Why would somebody do this?" Singh said.

Singh said the coroner does not plan to confirm the identities of the suspect and victim until Monday. Because his injuries were so severe, the child will have to be identified through a blood or DNA test, he said.

The suspect had a child's car seat in the back of his four-door pickup truck. The truck caught the attention of an elderly couple at 10:13 p.m. Saturday because it was stopped in the two-lane road facing the wrong direction, Singh said.

As they got closer, the couple saw the man brutally beating the toddler behind his truck and throwing the child on the ground, according to Singh. Two or three other cars stopped, an unusual number to be passing through the remote area surrounded by a dairy, a cow pasture, a cornfield and a farmhouse, he said.

"What we got from witnesses is he was punching, slapping, kicking, stomping, shaking," Singh said. "They tried to intervene and get involved, but their efforts really didn't have an effect. The suspect was engaged in what he was doing. He just pushed them off and went back to it."

A sheriff's helicopter responding to emergency calls from the area landed in a cow pasture at 10:19 p.m. carrying a Modesto police officer who shot the man to death after he refused an order to stop beating the child, Singh said.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate the toddler, who was not breathing when they arrived. The boy was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

No children within the dead boy's age range have been reported kidnapped or missing in Stanislaus County, Singh said.

The incident happened on Bradbury Road about 10 miles west of Turlock, a city located about halfway between Sacramento and Fresno.

There are fucked up people in this world.

cry, throw up, take the image to my grave.

unless I had a shovel or something in my car to hit him with, there's probably nothing I, just like the passersby, could have done.

if there were multiple other motorists i have a hard time understanding why they didn't stop him. maybe they were all 103 year old wheelchair bound women, but if not then i don't see much excuse for not doing something... anything.

It sounds like they were trying. Ultimately the guy had to be shot before he would stop. Obviously this was a fit of rage, not some premeditated thing.

A six-minute response time out in the middle of nowhere is pretty good for the cops, though it was clearly far too late.

i guess so. i'm sure you're right. I just have a hard time believing that a couple people with tire irons couldn't distract him.

As cold as it might sound, I have a duty to my own children not to get myself killed in an altercation with a crazed stranger. I'd try to get him to stop, but I wouldn't risk my life doing it. I think it was clear to everyone there that a bullet was the only thing to stop him.

If that was Texas, at least one of those motorists would have had a gun.

and if they had, would it be a justified shooting in the eyes of the law, I wonder?

You just had to go there. :headshake

But serious, I don't know if I could've done anything really, except imagine him being ripped apart in a Jigsaw Killer-type "game."

Yes it would have been justifiable homicide. Deadly force can be used to halt an assault likely to cause death or serious bodily injury.

sorry drax, that was insensitive. I didn't mean it the way it appears in black and white.

I probley would have ended up in Jail for Killing , or at LEAST Beating the Liveing SHIT out of this Whacko !!!!!

Fuggetaboudit. No big. Just watch it next time. J/K. ;)

There's no way I could stand by and let something like that happen. I'd be of the mindset that if someone was assaulting my child, I'd want someone...anyone to do everything they could to stop it, so I'd be doing the same for this child.

This just horrifys me. That it can happen in front of several witnesses. I think the tyre iron would be a good option. So would a club lock, which I know can make an excellent weapon (or method of intimidation in my case).

A note. If someone is that enraged, it's not going to be too tough to sneak up behind them and smash them over the head with a heavy object.

I have no heavy objects in my car. I have a first aid kid, a stroller, and a box of kleenex. I would have called 911, obviously, and aided other people in any way I could if they had weapons, but I would not try to go after him by myself.

I don't have children, but I have a duty to myself not to be put in danger.
Reviewing it without it in front of me I would go with the option of calling the police.

It's possible that if I saw it in front of me all my fears of physical injury and hatred of confrontation would be swept away. Hard to say. I've spoken up for complete strangers before, and stood up for myself in ways that I look back on and marvel. Taking physical action might be the next step if I saw someone else in physical danger. Hard to say, I've never hit someone who hasn't loved me before, I doubt I'd start on a violent stranger.

I'm certainly not saying I think it would be wrong to intervene. I'm just trying to be honest about my own actions.

Just this week I've read about a couple of child deaths at the hands of parents. A girl starved to death in her mother and stepfather's house. Another girl (again, malnourished) died of pneumonia I think, after being locked upstairs in the family's pub. A kid tied to a tree as punishment in America (Louisiana?)

Contraception isn't murder.

Heh, I have a hammer in the car. To work on stuff with. My husband also keeps a shovel in the back of the car, we have to dig ourselves out of the snow every once in awhile. Yes, even shovels can stop psychos. A lot of country folk carry crap like this in their cars because of their state of readiness.

Especially if I see a kid being thrown around like a tiny wet noodle. Hmm.....I think the sight of blood all over the kid would probably have me leaping into the great unknown with a weapon of choice. Hammer,shovel, or big rock. I might have even suffered some injuries, but the kid also might not have been killed either. The chances of me dying from such injuries are less likely than that of a kid, all in all. I call it the Bait and switch.

But just because I am willing to do something about it, does not make it a requirement of others. They called the cops, which is what they were supposed to do.

What Sarge said, Cloud. The case for a justifiable shooting could not be more clear. As Massad Ayoob explained it, you're justified in deadly force when somebody must stop what he is doing, or innocents are hurt. Emphasis pretty much his.

Totally fucked. But I bet by the time anyone was on the scene that kid was already beyond hope. 1 -2 year olds, while tough are not up for repeated kicking and shaking and being thrown onto the ground.

Too bad they shot the guy, it was too quick an exit for him. slowly flayed over a week or two would be more appropriate.

So learn where your tire irons are and always keep a sock full of pennies in your console.

I keep a bat in the trunk and a 4 D-cell Maglite in the backseat for occasions such as these.
I wouldn't have killed the guy outright, I would beat him to a bloody pulp starting at his extremities and working my way to his head so he feels every ounce of pain over his whole body before he goes unconscious. Fucking creep deserved nothing less.

I remember as a kid one of my friends, let's call her a challenging child, didn't get her way in a store. She threatened her dad that she would scream and make a scene. He told her he would beat her ass for a week straight if she did. She went screaming down the aisle, "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! STRANGER! HELP!" and pointing at her father who was chasing her.

Her father remembers that, but nothing else until he regained consciousness on the floor. A man who saw the scene thought he was witnessing a kidnapping or something of the sort did what he thought was prudent - he tackled the father and pounded his head on the floor until he was unconscious. He was horrified and apologetic when he found out the truth of it. Instead of pressing charges or being angry, my friend's father paid for the guy's groceries and thanked him for caring enough to get involved for a kid he didn't know.

You get involved. I can see staying back if it is just one person, but if there is a small group then something can always be done.

True, the child was probably already dead, but that's not the point.

Clarification: That wasn't my point, and certainly not an excuse to stand back and watch. because as a wise type * once said,
"You get involved. I can see staying back if it is just one person, but if there is a small group then something can always be done."

Very interesting divergence of opinion here. "I have a duty to protect myself" v. "I have a duty to save a person in danger."

In the case at hand, I would definitely want to do something to stop that man, but what? I could jump on him--think that would be effective? I would try to think of something, but things like that happen so fast. Too fast to coordinate some effective strategy with other people, probably. I carry nothing heavy in my car. I could hit him with the heaviest thing I have--my car--but how would I avoid hitting the child? Call 911, certainly.

Police identify man who beat toddler
 

From here:

I feel an individual would have been justified in shooting him.

The guy had to have been high. Even in the worst uncontrollable rage imaginable, who keeps beating something long after it's dead, especially after a police helicopter lands right next to you?

someone who says it is a demon.:mad:

I think they should bring him back to life and kill him again.

Burning at the stake, impalement, or a coin-toss to choose which, or one of each?

I would be interested to hear the results of a tox test.

Now they'd like to catch the guy in Oklahoma who shoots little girls two at a time.

If there were a few people, why didn't some of them jump him and someone else grab the baby, drag him away from the fray?

Why didn't anybody stop Robert Thompson or Jon Venables? (I use them as an example because there was no possibility of danger to anyone who would have intervened in that situation)

It seems that people don't want to involve themselves.

It may even be that we are being taught not to ... calling the police is supposed to be the right answer, so as not to put yourself in danger.

I honestly don't know what I'd do in similar circumstances, and I do carry a gun. I'd like to say that I would call 911, then try to talk to the guy, and consider deadly force as a last resort.

In this case it was because none of the witnesses realised the child was with other children intent on harm. They didn't abuse Jamie in public. Those who saw them assumed that a grizzling child being towed by two older boys was simply a case of older brother/ younger brother.

If I intervened every thime I saw a crying/ screaming/ tantruming child I'd never leave the supermarket.

Right enough Sundae. Actually watching a man kick a child to death is different to watching a crying child being led off by two older children.

The assailant would likely have had one, too.