Ironman competitor arrested for leaving child in VIP tent whilst he competes.. Has America completely lost it’s mind?!

Yeah, but could you have stayed in a VIP tent for 16 hours? All the irrelevant to the thread stuff, you listed, involves something stimulating to the brain. As an adult would it be no problem for you? It would be a miserable experience for me and far worse for a 9-year old.

I googled the guy’s name and only a few articles popped up. That means that outside of LR, people don’t give a crap that he was arrested.

Did he wear his BPN hat in the mugshot?

Remind me again, where is Lake Placid? Bangladesh?

Let's see if a judge agrees it's OK for a parent to leave their 9-year old son to fend for himself, all alone in a tent full of strangers.

It’s where speed skater Eric Heiden won 5 Gold Medals in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Has America lost it is mind??

"in a tent full of strangers" is not all alone and we're not talking about Port Authority here; we're talking about a triathlon VIP tent at Lake Placid. As for the others there being required to watch the kid while the father competes, he obviously expected that the kid entertain himself all day and others intervene only if something bad was happening, as any reasonable adult ought to do normally. So, no one actually had to do anything beyond our ordinary expectations. That's the way it is in other countries as well where they let the kids travel around cities and hang out on their own t/f school and afterwards and on weekends. You see it all over Europe, among other places. The kids are fine in 99.99% of the cases.

I have no idea how your post gets 24 downvotes. I walked a mile home from school by myself at 7, often stopping by a friend's house or store or whatever I wanted and vividly remember asking my parents to do so at 6 because the after school program was garbage. Never had an issue.

yes, I've actually read the article. Ironman complains that they're not responsible for babysitting. Well, did they babysit? A 9 year old can take care of himself unless they have some mental disability. If he sat alone playing on his phone how are any of the staff "babysitting" him? Is there a time or age limit on the vip tent? Even if there was, this seems like an internal dispute not something to call the cops over.

You are really relinquishing your moral authority to a judge. LoL. Clearly you were brought up coddled and it shows.

lots of people in this thread that don’t like the way America does things and would prefer it if we were more like Europe or South East Asia.

Conveniently I live in Europe, and asked around. No one thinks this is comparable to kids going into town with their friends, or taking public transport to and from school. On the contrary, they asked me to help them understand how a father could be so selfish and irresponsible, and how anyone can defend that.

Ironman VIP FAQ says "All children in VIP must be accompanied by an adult at all times on race day." It is certainly not a reasonable nor ordinary expectation.

This is not about the kid, and how he feels, or if he would probably be fine, but about the father's expectations and decisions.

I have already passed my moral judgement.

I'm getting lots of stories about how brave everyone was when they were kids, and how they are mentally stronger and independent for it, when they were left at home to play with their friends, or went an organized field trip, or an organized international flights, or about how in Asia, kids were still taken care of, at home, by their older siblings, while their mom worked.

If this is such an ordinary mundane experience in the USA, there must be plenty of stories about being abandoned as a 9-year old in another town among strangers, to fend for themselves for 16 hours, without access to friends, neighbors, or family, while their parents went out to have fun, or alternatively, where they did this as parents to a 9-year old.

And yet by all accounts the kid was not showing any distress about his situation.

Although he likely became distressed upon learning his father had been arrested.

My brother and I were given free range of the beach and several miles of boardwalk around that age on day trips. Our mother would technically be around, be she would also be wondering about shopping, and this was before cell phones, so we didn't have a good way of getting in touch. We'd just be handed some cash, told to only swim near lifeguards, and told when and where to meet back up.

For the record, leaving the kid unattended in violation of the race's posted rules is definitely a dick move. But whether or not it was negligence depends on a lot of context not in the OP's article.

Leaving a kid who seems happy by themselves in an area with definite access to food and water, interesting stuff to do at a nice, touristy part of the lake or local town, on a nice, not too hot day, etc., seems perfectly fine to me.

On the other hand, if the kid was instructed to absolutely not move from the "VIP tent," which was in some hot barely equipped place where the athletes could pick up a drink and sandwich after the race, then I can see why the guy got in trouble for endangering his kid.

This doesn't make it right. It's not about the kid, but about the father and his responsibility.

Of course it's about the kid. And you're the one going on about him being abandoned among strangers in an unfamiliar town.

There are two issues here. One is that the dad irresponibly violated Ironman policy by leaving the kid alone in the VIP tent. So Ironman was well within their rights to pull him from the race to pick up the kid.

The second is the kid's welfare. Was the kid ever in any kind of danger? Was his safety or health at risk? There is no indication from the report that was the case. So why was protective services and law enforcement called? This seems like it was a matter Ironman officials could have handled without anyone getting arrested.

Yeah all of that sounds completely reasonable. I didn't really comment on the getting arrested part of it. It's mostly Ironman not wanting to set a precedent or have any liability in a situation like this for a race organizer. Do what you want with your kids (within reason). Not really arguing for what age something like this is appropriate. It's not appropriate to dump your kid at the IM VIP tent while you go out & race for potentially 17 hours. Is a 9 year old perfectly in tune with their body to figure out all of their needs? Are you shifting that responsibility to other people? They're not at home/in their usual element. They're surrounded by strangers. I bet the cost of the VIP tent could've just paid for a sitter for the day. That's the irony of it to me. Just poor execution/not thinking by the dad. He went & bought a VIP ticket & easily could've paid for someone to watch his kid. Problem solved/no story. People seem to want to excuse the dads behavior instead of thinking about race policy/obligations to others/future precedent/etc. This isn't what you do as a parent at a race. This is different from playing with your friends/walking to school/or whatever. Nobody is attacking those freedoms. It's relying on the race org/others to watch your kids for, not a marathon, an ironman, when it's against their rules. That's it. No need to think on it any further. You agreed to do the race & abide by their rules. Now there are consequences. Go to court & make some of the arguments people on here want to make. I don't think they're related to the actions taken once rules were violated.

when i was 7 years old, i babysitted my younger brother and sister and cooked them breakfast.

at 8, boys drove pick up trucks on the farm.

the person that needs to be arrested is the official that called out the ultra athlete.

the entire group at hand in this affair needs a lashing for moron behavior.

At most, there were about a dozen people involved in the decision to have the father pulled out of the race and arrested. That’s compared to the 350M that live in the U.S.

have you geniuses considered that there may be more to this story than what is in the news report?

i don't think the police would have **arrested** him if there wasn't something else going on here. charged with a misdemeanor? maybe. but there's the possibility the kid said something to someone, had an incident with the staff, the guy got belligerant with the cops after he was DQed, or something else happened. usually the full details of situations like this, especially with minors involved, don't make it into news reports immediately.

if one of the staff simply got annoyed at being treated like babysitters (who knows how needy this specific kid is) and called the cops, the cops just would have come out and given the guy a talking to, not arrested him and taken him to the station. maybe have cps do a look-see if he lives in state.

as a dad (with free range kids) i wouldn't have my kid sit through a 16-hour event that i was doing for myself. whether or not it's critically risky is beside the point, just seems selfish. but i'm not seeing how it's arrest-worthy.