Girl, 5, drowns toddler to stop his crying

Girl, 5, drowns toddler to stop his crying

A five-year-old girl in the United States pushed a toddler under water to stop him from crying.The 18-month-old boy drowned in the bathtub.Police said the girl was considered a possible suspect in the toddler's death last week."The girl became upset when the toddler wouldn't stop crying and took him into the bathroom and drowned him," said Officer Darin Snapp of the Kansas City Police Department.

He said the two children were related, but it was unclear exactly how.

This case raises complicated legal questions about how a court could proceed with a case against such a young suspect.

Bart Lubow, director of the Juvenile Justice Strategy Group at the Annie E. Casey Foundation - a national child advocacy organisation - said the girl is incapable of forming intent and likely would not even know what drowning means.

"You can imagine a child responding to other children's crying by saying, 'I know how to stop that.' But the notion that there was intent there is silly," he said.

"For a 5-year-old, this is well beyond the pale of what our criminal or delinquency laws are intended to address."

Police said the girl was not arrested, and the case was referred to the family courts division.

The children had been left along with others under the supervision of a teenager while an adult in the home went to pick up the father of the boy.

Snapp said the father had recently arrived in Kansas City to take the infant back to their home in St. Louis.Source: AP
Published June 11 2011