Father Arrested for Protecting Son

Simply amazing

I haven't met a parent yet who wouldn't have that reaction. Some stranger reaches out and starts fondling their child in front of them...guys lucky to still be breathing. Three parts of this story simply amaze me:

1. The employee, Valerio Rodriguez, 71, of Providence, allegedly told police through a translator “that he was wrong for touching the little boy.”
...
“The predator did admit to police that he touched my son, but stated he was just joking around,” the flier stated.

The hell kind of joke is it to grab someone from underneath a stall. That's like saying it was a joke to rip off a strange girls dress. Even if you're telling the truth...you're still going to jail. What kind of crap defense is this...and why did it work?

2. But others interviewed in the parking lot, most of whom declined to be identified, said they believed it was an unfortunate, isolated incident.
Police seemed to agree.
“It’s far more likely that a young kid is going to get molested by somebody he knows than by some stranger in the restroom,” said Raynham Police Chief Louis J. Pacheco.

The guy still works there. It's not less likely that a child will be groped in a bathroom...if that bathroom is frequented by a child groper who has done this in that bathroom before. It's like a pretty girl walking into a rapists house drunk and saying "I'm more likely to get raped by an aquaintance than a stranger." Well...all things equal yes. But when you cozy up to a rapist...not at all.

And 3. Police said they did not arrest Rodriguez at the scene due to his advanced age and lack of a criminal record. Arresting Rodriguez, he said, would have required police to also arrest Beatrice, a scene that might have further traumatized the young boy.

That's a bold faced lie. If you see someone hitting a woman and you intervene, you are protected by the good samaritans law from going to jail. The assinine assertion that they would have HAD to arrest both parties is belied by millions of one sided arrests after fights. There is absolutely nothing that says they'd have to arrest the father as well.

The police handled this one horribly.