I heard about this on the news earlier, I only caught the tail end of the report. What I don’t understand is why she did it. Why she was only charged with child endangerment and not attempted murder? What in the world could the reason be for putting a 2-year-old in 2 different washing machines? This is the type of story that confirms my beliefs one should be required to have a license to have children. You are required to in able to drive cars because you have control of a dangerous piece of machinery. Why not the same to raise a child, the future generations of the world?
Mother arrested after child put in washing machine
May 26 2003
A two-year-old girl was rescued from a locked, running washing machine at a coin laundry in Pomona, California, at the weekend.
The girl's mother was arrested after a surveillance tape allegedly showed her putting the child into the machine, police said.
An officer smashed the window of the machine with his baton to rescue the girl, who was "submerged in water", a police spokesman said.
The child was unconscious but breathing.
She was taken to a hospital where she was listed in serious condition with cuts, scrapes and bruises.
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The child had inhaled some water but was expected to survive, the police spokesman said on Saturday.
Her mother, Erma Osborne, 35, of Pomona, was arrested for investigation of child endangerment and held on $US10,000 ($15,255) bail.
Surveillance camera footage allegedly showed that the woman placed her daughter in one washer, then removed her and placed her in a second front-loading washer, which turned on when she closed the door, the spokesman said.
"She wasn't drowned but she was getting there," Los Angeles County fire Captain Dan Ramirez said.
The machine apparently locks automatically when the wash cycle begins and does not unlock until the cycle ends, he said.
Efforts by the girl's mother and bystanders to unlock the door failed.
AP