Pet snake kills toddler -- should parents be charged?

You might have seen this story a few days ago: In Florida, a 2-year-old girl was crushed to death after her family's Burmese python sneaked into her room in the middle of the night. There's already a charge filed because the snake didn't have a permit, Ocala.com reports.

But authorities are still weighing whether to seek more serious charges. On the one hand, the family has already suffered a great loss, and a lot of people keep these snakes without anything tragic happening. On the other, though, there's a question whether the parents were sufficiently responsible in how they caged the snake.

Comments

[Keith G. in P.V.]

Throw the parents in prison and the other 2 kids in foster care. It won't bring the baby back, it will ruin 4 lives directly and multiple others indirectly. That way the prosecutor can look "tough on crime" and "pro-family." For surely, the prosecutor is the only one who stands to gain. The community will be no more safe.

[Searching]

Just have to ask yourself, if this happened to someone else, besides their own kid.. would they be charged? If so, then they should be charged now.

[Sasquach]

Take into consideration that the snake had already escaped from the cage twice. Add that to the fact that dad has a slew fo drug charges under his belt, ant that there have been previous DCF complaints against the family. Terrible situation for the family, but one they could have easily prevented.

[Chad]

That child suffered a horrible, excruciating death because her parents elected to keep a wild, cold blooded-killer animal as a "pet". Surely the guilt of that is enough and criminal charges would be too much. But, if I were the prosecutor and these parents aren't showing the proper remorse for their stupidity, then I'd charge them and make an example of them.

[G. Tripp]

Kill them, cut them up and feed them to the snake

[Drasil]

Sterilize them so they won't continue to contribute to the gene pool.

[ghost]

They were careless in how they kept this dangerous animal contained. They SHOULD be held responsible in a court of law.
Same goes for any adult that keeps historically dangerous dogs, like pit bulls, and they attack their child or anyone else. This should also be the case for people who keep exotic pets, like tigers, lions, bears,chimps, ect. Time for people to be responsible for the choices they make. Just because it was THEIR child who was the victim should make NO difference.

[anarchanon]

Uh, YA they should be held responsible. It was their python, was it not? That they failed to adequately manage?

[Ginger]

Yes, they should be charged. Anyone who endangers a child by having a dangerous pet should have to suffer the consquence.

[ML]

yes they should be charged with out. Arent they responsible for the safety of this child? they are the one that put her in this situation.

[Southpaw]

ghost - very nicely put, my thoughts exactly. Keep the exotic animals where they belong!! i have no sympathy for people like steve irwin that think they can cohabitate with these predators or people like this that want to own one as a family pet.

that being said, i have a toddler of my own and this is gut wrenching to read. i feel like i see this type of story way too often.

[sly]

If you read the article you'll see that this is a rare occurence. I think losing their children is much more painful than anything the justice system could throw at them. Pythons kill far fewer children than guns do, but I don't see a lot of condemnation--or indictments--when children get their parents' guns & shoot themselves playing cops & robbers. Unfortunately life is tragic; an army of prosecutors & scapegoats won't change that.