This (http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/142143/index.php) is the incident to which he's referring:
Today a Latino mother left her child in a stroller for an instant to discard an empty coffee container into the rubbish barrel nearby. In a split second, a rat, probably smelling the infant formula in the baby’s milk bottle in the bottom of the stroller, promptly jumped into the stroller. Fortunately several eyes were trained on the rat, including yours truly, and our yells and foot stamping scared the rodent, but apparently not too much, since his departure from the carriage was very much on the leisurely side. I have no doubt that absent the bystanders and their response, the rat would have attacked the child. Rats, after all, like human cartilage and have been known to eat the ears and nose off an infant in very short order. Horrified, the mother almost panicked in her haste to leave the park. My entreaties to her to report the incident fell on deaf ears, since her English was very limited, and, if she was undocumented, she unfortunately probably feared reporting anything to the authorities. Consider if the situation had been different, however, and the endangered infant belonged to a vocal, outraged citizen. In that case, if the infant had been bitten or worse you can imagine the kind of lawsuit the District would incur. You may also rest assured it would have TENAC’s total support.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 06:48 pm (UTC)Today a Latino mother left her child in a stroller for an instant to discard an empty coffee container into the rubbish barrel nearby. In a split second, a rat, probably smelling the infant formula in the baby’s milk bottle in the bottom of the stroller, promptly jumped into the stroller. Fortunately several eyes were trained on the rat, including yours truly, and our yells and foot stamping scared the rodent, but apparently not too much, since his departure from the carriage was very much on the leisurely side. I have no doubt that absent the bystanders and their response, the rat would have attacked the child. Rats, after all, like human cartilage and have been known to eat the ears and nose off an infant in very short order. Horrified, the mother almost panicked in her haste to leave the park. My entreaties to her to report the incident fell on deaf ears, since her English was very limited, and, if she was undocumented, she unfortunately probably feared reporting anything to the authorities. Consider if the situation had been different, however, and the endangered infant belonged to a vocal, outraged citizen. In that case, if the infant had been bitten or worse you can imagine the kind of lawsuit the District would incur. You may also rest assured it would have TENAC’s total support.