Printed in the Denver Post: December 31, 2017
The Denver Post recently published a shortened version of an Associate Press article about a mother from Lakewood, Colorado, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on misdemeanor child abuse charges. (Denver Post, Lakewood Mom Assaulted Son on Flight to Salt Lake City, complaint says. December 12, 2017)
According to the AP story, the mother continually hit, shoved, shook, kicked and verbally abused her 8-year-old son on a five-and-a half hour Jet Blue Airline flight from Boston to Salt Lake City. According to witnesses on the plane the boy was pinned against the window crying and pleading for his mother to stop. The mother tightly covered the boy’s face to stifle his cries. Three passengers reported the incidents to the flight crew. The airline allowed the child to remain with his mother throughout the duration of the flight. The mother was subsequently arrested and charged with child abuse.
The AP’s story was quickly picked up by media outlets around the country, including some of our own local outlets. The headlines repeatedly read, “Child Abuse on Planes Can Create ‘Gray Area’ for Airlines.”
The AP article began with the following paragraph: “Flight Crews can restrain passengers or even divert flights when violent behavior erupts in midair, but when the situation involves a parent potentially abusing a child, the decisions are not clear cut.” The story went on to cite a “travel industry analyst” who stated, “This is certainly a very unpleasant situation, but it is one that is full of, if you will, gray areas, as opposed to a black-and-white situation. (Emphasis added.)” The article then went on to compare the child abuse situation to another Jet Blue flight on that same date that was immediately diverted because an adult passenger was reportedly biting and hitting another adult passenger. Apparently, the conclusion to be drawn by the reader is that child abuse somehow presents unique circumstances that do not warrant the same immediate response as adult-on-adult violence.
The incident is concerning. Based on the facts presented, it appears the flight crew treated ongoing acts of child abuse with less urgency than it did in a violent situation involving two adults. The question is why.
The expert’s comments that the child abuse incident was “unpleasant,” as well as the lack of decisive action by the airline, represent a fundamental misunderstanding about the dynamics of intra-family violence and the impact of child abuse on its victim. The situation serves to perpetuate century-old stereotypes that parents have the right to abuse their children and that children are required to endure such violence simply because of the family relationship. These antiquated notions have no place in our society and serve to compromise child safety and sanction abusive behaviors.
State and federal child abuse laws are clear. It is a crime to physically or emotionally cause harm to your child. Clearly federal authorities and a grand jury understood this as was evidenced by the child abuse indictment they issued against the Lakewood mother.
So, let’s set the record straight. Child abuse on planes does not create a “gray area.” Child abuse is child abuse – whether it occurs in a home, a park, a local bus or in this case, on an airplane. The fear, anguish and pain experienced by the child is the same. When adults see a child being repeatedly hit, kicked, threatened and crying in pain over a prolonged period of time, that child deserves immediate protection. Period. The airline’s employees had a duty to protect this child the same as it would any adult passenger. It is not complicated and it certainly is not “gray.”
