Herald-Leader staff report
A manager at Bed Bath & Beyond will be arraigned Sept. 25 in Fayette District Court for allegedly failing to help a child who was locked inside a hot van.
Elizabeth A. Miller, 34, of Richmond was charged last week with duty to report dependency, neglect and abuse after police learned she allegedly refused to call police for a Danville couple who found a 3-year-old locked in a hot van in the parking lot of the housewares store on Nicholasville Road. Miller told the couple that it was against store policy to get involved in activities in its parking lot, which a Bed Bath & Beyond corporate spokesman said was not the chain’s policy.
The charge is a misdemeanor.
If convicted, Miller could face a maximum of 90 days in jail and a $250 fine
If anyone out there from the correction system is reading this, it sure would be a shame if the thermostat in her cell was stuck on high.
I’ll tell ya what’s a damn shame…….the fact that Ms. Miller meant no ill will, thought she was following corporate procedure, who is now throwing her under the bus to save their own butt…and that we have heard little about the mother, a Patel, who locked her child in the hot car, in pants and long-sleeves, nonetheless and that her only defense is ‘i meant to leave the car running.’
It’s not a shame that Ms. Miller is getting charged. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence and humanity knows that children locked in cars alone = bad. Whether or not she truly thought she was following “corporate procedure”, the human inside of her should have said “procedures be damned” and phoned the police.
What IS a shame is the fact that the mother isn’t being charged. Locking your child in a car is stupid and negligent, whether or not the car is running.