I am definitely not arguing—at all—that it’s cool to just let a 3-year-old do whatevs in a crowded public space. There’s a difference between just letting a kid run free and wild and looking away for a second to tend to another child.

Also: a lot of people are responding with what ifs. What if the kid was abducted, what if it was the kid who was killed, etc. Life is one big ass What If. The bigger question I’m asking is, is there ANY possibility that this could’ve been an accident? A momentary distraction or lack of 100% focus on a single child? A lot of people seem very determined to blame when they have very little information about what happened in this situation or any situation involving kids in general.