GQchris

(06-17) 19:07 PDT TURLOCK (STANISLAUS COUNTY) -- The town of Turlock and much of the rest of the nation was shocked when a 27-year-old man beat and stomped his 2-year-old son to death on a rural road. But what was nearly as stunning for many people was that none of the motorists and their passengers who stopped and saw the attack tried to tackle the man.

Police officers and psychologists familiar with violent emergencies, however, said they weren't surprised at all.

A volunteer firefighter and at least five others saw Sergio Casian Aguiar assaulting his son Saturday night on the road west of Turlock (Stanislaus County), but it wasn't until a police officer arrived in a helicopter that the attack finally ended. Aguiar refused to halt the attack and raised his middle finger at the officer, who shot him to death, authorities said.

Bystanders are justifiably scared and confused in such situations, the experts said Wednesday, and they lack the experience needed to respond with force. They can also be mesmerized by shock.

John Conaty, a veteran homicide detective and former patrol officer in Pittsburg, said that in interviews of witnesses to violence, "the common thing you hear is, 'I was frozen in fear. I just couldn't take action.' "

Conaty questioned whether the witnesses had even been capable of stopping Aguiar. "If they were physically able, you have to take a look at whether they were psychologically prepared to intervene," he said.

"I would not condemn these people," said John Darley, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University who has studied how bystanders react in emergency situations. "Ordinary people aren't going to tackle a psychotic.

"What we have here," Darley said, "is a group of family and friends who are not pre-organized to deal with this stuff. They don't know who should do what. ... If you had five volunteer firefighters pull up, you would expect them to have planned responses and a division of labor. But that's not what we had here."

Darley said he was also not surprised that people who weren't at the scene of the killing believe they would have been heroic Good Samaritans.

"It's an aspiration," he said. "They hope they would have done differently."

First on the scene
One of the witnesses, Deborah McKain of nearby Crows Landing, said she was the first to pull up to the beating scene with her boyfriend, a volunteer fire chief who is 52, as well as her 20-year-old son, her son's wife and her son's male friend. They called 911 at 10:13 p.m., police said.

Over the next seven minutes, McKain said, Aguiar kicked his son at least 100 times as he calmly stated that he needed to "get the demons out" of the boy.

"It was like I was on some type of drug or something," McKain recalled Tuesday. "I couldn't believe what was going on. It was like a dream."

She said her boyfriend, Dan Robinson, forcefully argued with Aguiar in an effort to get him to stop, but that he would not. At one point, another woman, 23-year-old Lisa Mota, pulled up in her car, but stayed inside.

"We were looking for rocks or boards on the ground, just to knock him out, get him under control. But we couldn't find anything," McKain said. "We didn't know if he had a knife or any kind of weapon on him."

McKain said she wondered whether Aguiar was on hallucinogenic drugs and whether fighting with him might lead him to hurt several of the witnesses.

She also said it appeared the child was "gone."

People who are second-guessing her and her family can "never know until they're in that situation," McKain said. "We would have loved to knock his head off, too, but we had nothing to knock it off with."

Deputy Royjindar Singh, a spokesman for the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department, acknowledged there was some "Monday morning quarterbacking" taking place, but said his agency had no problem with the actions of the witnesses.

'Everybody acts differently'
"Your headlights are shining on a person taking the life out of an infant, and not just shaking and slapping but punching and kicking," Singh said. "Everybody reacts differently."

Sheriff's investigators are still trying to determine why Aguiar, a grocery store worker who recently split up from his schoolteacher wife, killed his son so savagely. The boy's name still has not been released.

Investigators have learned that Aguiar left his home near downtown Turlock before the beating, but they don't know why he drove about 10 miles into an area of cornfields and dairy ranches, Singh said. He said investigators had found no evidence of drug use at Aguiar's house or in his pickup, though results of toxicology tests have not yet come back.

Aguiar's wife, who was in Southern California at the time of the slaying, and others have told investigators that Aguiar "wasn't acting differently than how he normally acts," Singh said. Aguiar's family members, who live in Mexico, were traveling to Stanislaus County to talk to deputies, Singh said.

"As of right now," Singh said, "nobody's saying he was having problems at all. It's baffling. It sounds like there was nothing anyone could have done."

E-mail Demian Bulwa at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com.

Inaction in boy's killing called justified

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle










Inaction in boy's killing called justified

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GQchris

It was Edmund Burke who said that all that has to happen for evil to flourish is for good men to stand by and do nothing. Which is exactly what happened in this case.

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Bjjexpertise@be

Bystander effect .

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kingoftheforest

All I needed to read was the first few lines. People in this country are so afraid to do anything at this point that some foreign nation should just come in and take over. Apparently American pride has turned into a dry lump of turd in the sun.

Everyone who passed and didn't get out to help should be imprisoned or shot for being a completely ball less asshole.

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Tant01

All the more reason to be armed and prepared...

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"In all countries where personal freedom is valued, however much each individual may rely on legal redress, the right of each to carry arms - and these the best and the sharpest - for his own protection in case of extremity, is a right of nature indelible and irrepressible, and the more it is sought to be repressed the more it will recur."

James Paterson

Britt

Yup. "Somebody should do something!" = Nobody does anything. Kitty Genovese all over again. Sad.

TTEscrima

+1! Too many people are soft and anti weapon in this country. I think anti weapon people are really just scared little cowards who intend to use not having a weapon as their excuse for not acting.

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GQchris

There was a Fireman, and other males that could've rushed this A-hole. Instead they continually let him brutalize the kid. I don't care if the dude was on drugs or knew Kung Fu, he won't easily have his way if rushed by more than one male.

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Bjjexpertise@be

Like my 55 year old british history said back in high school:

"What happened to the days where one gentleman can walk up to a man, tap him on the shoulder and say, 'sir, I'm going to kick your ass' without being sued by the law."

These are sad times :-\.

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GQchris

This further reinforces the need to be Ready. I don't know about anyone else, but I would like to be able to instantly neutralize someone like this if God help me I ever witness someone assaulting a small child like this.

My first thought is to take out this asshole with a gun, but then again risk jail; but what about knives, obviously the practicality of carrying something the size of a Kabar is out.

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Bjjexpertise@be

The law would probably restrict you to tackling him to the ground and "safely-restraining" him.

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ttruscott

My Take:



"I know how they were feeling," he said. "It’s like you wish you could have done more."


Six Minutes of horror as Turlock father beats, kills his son; by Julia Prodis Sulek and Ken McLaughlin Mercury News

Article Launched: 06/16/2008 07:43:19 PM PDT

Six-and-a-half minutes: http://www.mercurynews.com/valley/ci...nclick_check=1


Six-and-a-half minutes for two men to try to stop a father from beating "the demons" out of his two-year-old son in the middle of a dark country road. Six-and-a-half minutes for a young woman to crouch in her car and watch in helpless shock. Six-and-a-half minutes for a police officer to land in a helicopter, run across a cow pasture, and shoot the man squarely in the forehead.


MY QUESTION:

Would things have been different if one of the men or the woman had had a firearm and not been afraid?

This relates directly to why I started to train in martial arts back in 1972. I may joke about starting to train so I could beat people up but in fact, I already felt I could handle most situations ok.

Then I got concerned that I had to protect my family. Nor did I want to go to jail because the only option I had in protecting my family might be an illegal over-reaction of excessive force.

Six-and-a-half minutes…

until a man with a gun could come and shoot him.

A baby dies because we have been indoctrinated to believe that our use of violent force is somehow wrong even though it may save the life of an innocent.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

~ Mahatma Gandhi


Years ago I decided I would never be helpless in the face of violence against my family. Violent force would not be my first choice nor my desire but I would be able to stop violence by my own hands if needed. This has become extended to the larger community.

“He seemed to be dangerous…”

Are we cowards that we must watch a child die because the killer is dangerous??

In fact I doubt if they were cowardly, just overwhelmed and inadequate in the face of true evil.

I’m with Ghandi on this one; when we are faced with the necessity of violence, calling our impotence non-violence is crass and unworthy.

Ted

self defense for women and seniors | Defend Yourself 101

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Tots64

I’m with Ghandi on this one; when we are faced with the necessity of violence, calling our impotence non-violence is crass and unworthy.

Ted<<<

Yes Ted, I'm right with that too. I allways try to resolve problems with no violence, sometimes it's possible, sometimes not, and when I'm pushed to violence I react violently, there is no other solution.

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