>The authorities shut down the day care center midday on January 24, calling parents to immediately come pick up their kids. Terrified moms and dads raced over to find six armed deputies and a slew of cop cars.

Sounds like overkill to me. You would think the cops would have something better to do.

Poncha Springs has a population of under 1000 people, so they probably don't. The real question is why approximately 1% of the population is a police officer.

EDIT: See Turing_Machine's comment below, I forgot that "deputies" means this is a county-wide police force.

And I'm like 80% sure the police has a SWAT team that's better equipped than most countries militaries.

And when you have a SWAT unit, you're just itching to use it too.

I'm about as anti-gun as someone can be, but nothing in the article says SWAT.

The article doesn't say it, but that's what small-town police does in the US.

I remember watching a gun shop reality (Sons of Guns perhaps?) some time ago and they made a swamp boat for the local sheriff's department.

WITH. A. MINIGUN. ON. IT.

"Deputies" implies that they work for a county sheriff's department, not a city police department. Poncha Springs is located in Chaffee County, which has a population of 19,476 ATW.

Ah, right! That makes more sense, I forgot about sheriff's departments. Still complete overkill here.

"face criminal charges for not reporting this incident to the authorities quickly enough"

"The authorities shut down the day care center midday on January 24, calling parents to immediately come pick up their kids. Terrified moms and dads raced over to find six armed deputies and a slew of cop cars."

Congratulations Colorado legal system. Job well done..

This perv-phobia witch-hunting has gotten completely ridiculous. Kids get naked sometimes. Nobody (including them) cares.

(I was raised with Germanic/Euro sensibilities about this, but in the USA. So my perspective is surely unique.)

> Kids get naked sometimes. Nobody (including them) cares.

"When she returned, she saw the 5-year-old "crouched over" a 3-year-old who later told Lovato that the boy had tried to pull her pants down and touch her butt.

"The next day, when Lovato went into the center's bathroom, she found three kids there, including a girl with her pants down and the same boy. He was touching her butt."

This was a massive overreaction by the state, but that child's behavior shouldn't be handwaved away -- it may be that the child just needs a firm conversation about keeping his hands to himself, but he may need a lot more, and we don't know.

It's possible that the 5 year old was being sexually abused, or witnessed another child being sexually abused, and was mimicking the action. (Most victims of sexual abuse do not abuse others, but a 5 year old is developmentally at a monkey-see-monkey-do phase.)

There can be a massive overreaction by the government _and_ still be genuine issues we need to look for and address.

This. Investigating the 5 yo's environment would be prudent here. The 5 yo himself may be at risk at home and some help may be needed here (even if as the comment said - with a firm conversation).

> It's possible that the 5 year old was being sexually abused, or witnessed another child being sexually abused, and was mimicking the action

Could be, but honestly, I'd bet it's exposure to porn of some sort. That seems like a 5 year old understanding of what must that taboo behavior must be . . . butt touching.

> There can be a massive overreaction by the government _and_ still be genuine issues we need to look for and address.

Mind blown! A person who actually does not dismiss the whole thing as just an overreaction by the gov. Thank you!

That's fair.

It does actually seem like the 5yo needs some professional help.

It's not normal to be that interested in other kids private parts at that age.

I think that can vary by kid. At the very least, from a completely asexual perspective, and since these parts are normally always hidden, a young child could be curious about the differences.

My 21 month old knows the names of those parts and knows that mommy seems to be missing something lol. But he hasn't asked yet because he can't verbalize questions yet.

You're right, nobody honestly cares, except someone who's scared of themselves bring exposed for this... Usually this is projection at its finest

Insanity in slow motion.

It's really a slow motion apocalypse for American jurisprudence, common sense, and dignity.

Just when you think you've read the ridiculous part, it keeps getting more and more ridiculous:

> The authorities shut down the day care center midday on January 24, calling parents to immediately come pick up their kids. Terrified moms and dads raced over to find six armed deputies and a slew of cop cars.

In many developed countries, yes, we would expect that. It’s a pre-school and it’s essentially an administrative issue. And we would probably not need more than one officer, perhaps armed with a notepad and a pen.

Refer to the legal principle of proportionality.

This is America. Law enforcement officers do not remove their firearms.

The law requires some minimal amount of adult supervision in childcare settings that was already violated when none of the supervisors were being interrogated. Sending one person to remove one child supervisor would have exacerbated that problem.

I don’t understand what your second paragraph has to do with my comment. Or maybe it was just a failure of the imagination? (ie.: it’s possible to jot down some notes at 5pm, it doesn’t have to happen at 10:32am, this is not a 911 call. Someone being late for dinner is a smaller inconvenience for all involved.)

And yes, I understand that Colorado is in the United States and that the United States has a very bizarre idea of what it means to protect citizens (or to protect children).

I'm with you on this (Australian here), but the difference is in the US the police basically need to be prepared for any issue to escalate due to the US being an insane dystopia.

Gotta love when these pre-schooler situations escalate! I'm imagining (pausing to think about an aussie cultural reference) marmite... Marmite everywhere! hahaha :joy-emoji:

Vegemite* close enough though :)

Oops!

The second paragraph is about why they didn't send just one officer. If they're shutting down the school, that can't happen at 5 p.m.

No, I would expect an administrative shutdown of a daycare facility to not be done by armed positions in the first place.

It was a criminal investigation, and the directors were charged with crimes. We can argue about whether the law is right here and about whether cities and counties should defund the police to pay for more non-armed law enforcement, but given what the town had to work with, this doesn't seem extraordinarily ridiculous.

Whenever I see articles like this -it's reason.com.

I often roll my eyes at them too, but in this case, do you imply the event & response didn't happen? Or that it's not outrageous?

“But as the toddlers themselves discovered, sometimes there is just no way to cover your rear end.”

Bravo! What a sentence.

This is only possible in America…

which part? understaffed and overworked child care workers? non-existing support for parents of kids? sexualization of children? waste of government resources? people dismissing potential signs of sexual abuse? armchair children education experts?

End this sick Nation now

Based on the description of what the kid actually did... This is not the overreaction that Reason thinks it is.

This boy committed multiple acts of sexual assault. This behavior is common in children suffering from abuse, but the relavant issue for the trial is that the workers were aware of this boys behavior and let it continue.

I agree. If we take at face value what is described there this needs attention and is not a "kids being kids" thing.

First: being understaffed. Let's pretend that those caregivers are not stessed and overworked /s. Also leaving kids this young alone for 5 minutes - especially when this shit already has happened? What the actual fuck?

Second: there is more than one incident, pulling down the pants is part one. The kid that did this was actually interested in touching the private parts. This is not a 1-2yo. This could signal that this kid is abused.

Third: As a parent, would you like for this to happen where you drop off your kid every day? Closing the daycare may be an overreaction but depending on what was happening there it could potentially be the right thing.