They confiscated his gear to force him to come get his kid, who other than him and those that confiscated the gear knew? They didn’t have him arrested they reported an abandoned kid to the cops they chose to arrest him, IM has nothing to do with their decision to arrest him.
All of those things were done out of the public eye so all of those are the exact opposite of what you’re saying.
Publicly shaming him would have been to get on their IG account mid race and post his picture with a caption that says this negligent father abandoned his child and is wanted by the authorities. Please help us locate him on course his bib # is ####. Don’t approach he is a danger to the public please simply report his location to authorities. They could have also listed his address, phone number, IG handle and place of employment to complete the flaming.
But they didn’t they simply forced him off course and handed his kids off to the people who could safely take responsibility for him.
Go back and re-read the exchange. That whole paragraph is a fake public shaming by IM in response to the claim that IMs actions were a public shaming of the father. It’s fully hyperbolic and not real.
So they reported him to the cops. Obviously IM didn’t arrest him, not their job. I simply stated IM made an example of him, abuse our VIP lounge as free babysitting and we call the cops. It was as simple as that. Sorry but i did piss in your cheerios.
Lol what ledge are you fucking talking about lol. You said they made an example, I said…good. This issue they should make an example out of. Nothing less, nothing more. When you behave in this manner in 2025, talking about how we treated kids in 1978 is irrelevant. Thus my fuck around and find out is all that happened here.
Brooks i totally agree w you, that response was tacked onto myself to Marquette.
It was a simple observation they made an example out of him, we all talked about it, job done. I don’t know what Marquette read from my initial post and then diatribe about situation.
I just find it hilarious or sad that you think anyone on the race team’s motivation for calling the cops was to make an example of the dad for taking advantage of VIP. Like the volunteer who noticed the kid was unsupervised for hours thought was “fuck this dad, I’m gonna make sure this never happens again” instead of “ummmm is this kid ok, should I do something? How can I help him”.
He absolutely has been publicly shamed but you actually think that was someone at IM’s motivation?
I’m not a parent, nor want to ever be a parent. I have 2 nephews and nieces, aged 9/7/5. The 9 year old is one of those mature for his age / good toosy type of kid. You give him a tablet, show him the restroom and where to grab a sandwich, and he’d have sat in the corner for 10 hours as long as he could connect to a power source to keep the screen going. The middle kid even if he was 9, he’s too free spirited too every think you could sit him there for a whole day; he’d have entered the race himself from boredom after a few hours of screen time. Obviously I’d never actually go through it like this dad did (and I don’t think anyone else in this thread would either). Maybe he has a “mature” 9 year old like my little nephew- reports were he was fine when they checked him over. I think this is one of those examples where in 2025 you have default responses from authorities with an “child abadonment” case that may not necessarily have been same response “back in my/your/old timer’s day”.
So even if the arrest actually doesn’t stick, I’d have guess it would have been weirder to not arrest the parent in this situation in current day society than to have him arrested. It seems like the laws are ambigous enough that this is not a clear case of false arrest, even if he gets cleared eventually. There’s 100% chance if authorities were not involved, people would have said “why did IM not get the authorities involved, who do they think they are with this type of issue”. So back to the whole “fuck around and find out”.
For sure… and i mean, they ended his race, cops called, news articles, yeah he got what he had coming.
For Marquette i think someone was like, yeah we’re not letting this slide. Public shame? No. Like you said they didnt insta-F him or anything. But they were like, this dude messed up, he’s done. Your def of example and mine are askew right now.
Yeah I think we’re pretty close to agreement. I think it was more about the kid and not wanting to risk taking liability for him and less about the actual dad.
But I also don’t think anyone was looking to spare him either. I suspect in the moment everyone involved was highly emotional and their gut reaction had to have been what the fuck is this guy thinking leaving his kid to be clandestinely babysat by volunteers. He did it knowing full well he was trying to get away with something.
If he didn’t think he was doing something wrong he would have told a volunteer what he was doing and they would have either told him to get fucked or the volunteer may have taken mercy on him and accepted responsibility. If my wife was volunteering at VIP I could absolutely see her saying she’d keep an eye on him but also ask for multiple emergency contacts, allergies, preferences, etc
Yeah, for sure, I’d like to think if i was the tent guy I’d low key tell him don’t worry I’ll keep an eye. I mean how many 9yo were in the tent to look for?
I 100% would have told that kid to say I was watching him if anyone gave him trouble. I’d have also told his dad he’s a dumbass when he finished his race.
There would be no chance in hell if I’m volunteering at an IM at 6am I’m just going to “take responsibility” for some kid for the next 15 hours from some random stranger putting them on me/IM/others.
Do I need to be a parent or want to be a parent to think it’s wild/weird to ask a total stranger to “watch” my kid as I dump them off so I can go race for the next 15 hours? That makes no sense to me. I was going to add, if I’m a volunteer in that situation I may have said “let’s talk to IM and see what we can do”, and maybe they help him, maybe they don’t. But to be standing there as a volunteer and a random guy asks you to watch their kid for that day…dude just skip the fucking race man, that seems weird to do as a parent. And mind you this isn’t some emergency situation where child care options may be limited and you just dump them on your random neighbor, or someone to take care of an actual real life emergency. We are talking about a hobby situation where a parent acted in sorta a shit way.
No, it’s totally reasonable that you wouldn’t. I think what he means is parents do it for other parents (on MUCH smaller scales) all the time. Mom needing to change an infant while her 2 toddlers are being helions, of course we’ll offer to keep on eye on them while she changes her infant. The instinct to assist is the same only the scale here is much larger.
But I also get why you wouldn’t, it would be way to big an ask for me to do as well. So no judging. If however, he wanted someone to watch for the swim bc the mom was late but inbound, that’s a scale for example I’d consider.
Yes I totally understand parents helping parents. Hell I’ve done that for friends. I am the king of playing 3 hours of “Uncle B”. I’ll spoil the shit out of them and give them back to you parents to deal with the consequences, lol…but 15 hours of playing Uncle B to some random last min so you can go do a hobby???..go get stuffed dad. I don’t think this *scale (15 hours of babysitting a random child) applies to that type of “parents helping parents” scale though.
It’s also why I editted to add- I’d have gone to IM and told them the situation to figure out how to help the dad. If they ultimately say no bueno, then dad- you need to act like a responsible dad, and bow out of the race. Expecting other parents to save the day because it’s their instincts to take care of another kid in this scale of a situation- your a shit for asking in that situation imo.
Again this isn’t some emergency situation, this isn’t something that popped up at the last second. We are talking about a hobby event that you can just as easily DNS.
Totally understand, but I also think that’s where being a parent comes in and being around other parents who make those horrible life choices. We are probably exposed more to this type of parenting behavior than non-parents.
In the end the kid suffers the most bc he likely would have internalized it being his fault his dad can’t race and the dad, already having demonstrated he’s selfish, possibly would have let the kid feel the blame. Which is why I could see my wife stepping up not for the dad but for the kid.
Oh for sure, that dad needed to be called out for this one. He’s a dumbass.
As for watching out for other kids it’s just something I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember since I have a giant family. I spent so many summer days at the beach or by the pool being the watchful eye for my sisters and cousins and their friends and the random kid who just joined in on the fun.
to Marquette.