Toddler thrown onto freeway

[SusieMisajon]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

The one that threw him off of the overpass is the guilty one. It could have been any kid, in any kind of family.

[mapen]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

Exactly. There are probably hundreds of people high on meth on Oahu right now as you read this who aren't doing anything violent. What killed that baby is the 23 year old man in jail, not the meth epidemic.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

The amount of resources (our tax dollars) being used to "reunite" far exceeds what would be paid out in foster care payments.

Let's not forget that it wasn't all that long ago that CPS was perceived as an evil agency that would permanently remove children at the drop of a hat. Anyone else remember the horror stories about children removed because of normal events?

It appears the pendulum has gone too far the other way. How do we prevent a similar swing too far back?

[tutusue]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

Exactly. There are probably hundreds of people high on meth on Oahu right now as you read this who aren't doing anything violent. What killed that baby is the 23 year old man in jail, not the meth epidemic.

It has been alleged that Higa is a meth user. If it's proved he was on meth at the time of the murder then, yes, meth was instrumental in this tragic situation.

[EastCoastTropics]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

It has been alleged that Higa is a meth user. If it's proved he was on meth at the time of the murder then, yes, meth was instrumental in this tragic situation.

I agree!

I've been following this thread and I'm saddened for little angel Cyrus. May he rest in peace....

I've been looking at the photos and can't help but notice that the overpass didn't have any high/enclosed fencing. Here the pedestrian walkways are fully enclosed. An overpass road with a sidewalk for pedestrians has a high, arched fence. Just wondering if all the other pedestrian walkways and overpasses in Hawaii have no enclosed/high fencing.

[scrivener]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

the fact that ice was in his system doesn't make ice instrumental. higa apparently suffered from some kind of mental illness. for all any of us knows, the ice was a form of self-medication and prevented him from doing something worse. we also haven't heard much about higa's history with this family: how are we sure this wasn't some kind of deliberate attack on the family?

ice is bad. but you can't rush to conclusions about its causing anything at this point.

[tutusue]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

I agree...to disagree with you, scriv.

[mapen]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

It has been alleged that Higa is a meth user. If it's proved he was on meth at the time of the murder then, yes, meth was instrumental in this tragic situation.

I agree that if not for the meth, this tragedy would not have happened. But, I still hold him, not the meth, responsible. He chose to act irresponsibly by smoking meth, and allowed his judgement to be so compromised that he committed this heinous act.

If a drunk person gets behind the wheel of a car and drives into oncoming traffic and kills a family in a SUV, do you blame the drug "alcohol" or do you blame the driver?

[MixedPlateBroker]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

How do we prevent a similar swing too far back?

From a purely economic approach, the logical point to tackle the problem is on the supply side. The state could offer $100 to any man or woman under 30 who volunteers to be sterilized. No need to verify applicants are meth heads as addicts who are compelled to commit property crimes to support their habits would naturally be drawn in. A cost-benefit analysis would show that the state recoups the cost of the program many times over in savings on spending on social services and criminal justice.

I'm not saying I would support such a socially, politically and morally incorrect program. But I do support discussion by politicos and the populace on how we can help prevent tragedies like Cyrus' death from ever happening. Maybe injecting extreme ideas such as the aforementioned "prevention program" into the discussion is what is needed to get our lawmakers beyond the usual posturing and finger-pointing.

But let's at least address the 900 lb. gorilla in the room: Chanco has no business having kids. Yeah, I said it. I'm not blaming her for Cyrus' death. I'm just saying a woman who's already had two children taken away from her because she can't properly care for them, a woman who smokes ice while pregnant, a woman who was admittedly still smoking ice last week ... is not a woman who should be having kids. And it's just sad that she has more of an incentive to smoke ice and keep having kids than to stay clean and concentrate on making herself a productive member of society.

[pzarquon]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

I've been looking at the photos and can't help but notice that the overpass didn't have any high/enclosed fencing. Here the pedestrian walkways are fully enclosed. An overpass road with a sidewalk for pedestrians has a high, arched fence. Just wondering if all the other pedestrian walkways and overpasses in Hawaii have no enclosed/high fencing.

There are a few bridges that have such fencing, but the vast majority of them do not. I didn't think anything of it until visiting the East Coast and seeing bridges almost completely (and sometimes completely) enclosed. Or at least with 6' high fences that arch inward at the top.

I dare say the fence along the Miller Street pedestrian bridge is actually higher than many other roadway crossings in Honolulu. Some of the older streets that cross H-1, frankly, have barriers that are barely waist high. I see kids climbing up and walking along the wide but low concrete walls at the Punahou St. overpass all the time. The ones mauka of downtown around Kalihi look like they're even lower. I feel like I could just trip and end up on the freeway.

It's definitely disconcerting to folks from the mainland, as I remember discussing it with neighbors at length when we lived in Makiki (talking about the Keeaumoku overpass, in that case). Heck, they were having trouble to the open air walkways in many of our high-rise apartment buildings (like ours). They remained paranoid that they could step out of the elevator, come across a crazy person, and get tossed over the side.

I guess that's not so remote a possibility these days...

[tutusue]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

I have to admit to quick surges of adrenaline when on the freeway, approaching an overpass and seeing someone standing at the railing on that overpass just staring down the freeway. If I have enough time I'll move over another lane or 2 while closing my sunroof. I think I can honestly say that had I been at the scene at the time of baby Cyrus' death or witnessed it from not far away I doubt I'd recover fully from the trauma. The other victims in this case are those who did witnessed it, esp. the 2 drivers who couldn't avoid the inevitable. Wow...what they must be going thru...

I've long believed all overpasses should be completely or almost completely enclosed.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

This is going to sound insensitive but this is how I really feel:
I don't feel sorry for that mom - I only feel for poor Cyrus. That stupid evil woman hurt her child with her bad parenting and pathetic drug addiction. I hope that she rots in the hottest part of hell for eternity! When I saw her interview - I wanted to throw up at her ingenuous and apathetic responses. She was shedding crocodile tears and she deserves to go to jail.

Thank you for that statement!!!

They were definately bad parents. Grandfather had a criminal record, Father, Mother and Boyfriend had a criminal record...virtually every role model in Cyrus' life were bad people. Any wild guesses that Cyrus could have ended up much the same if he had lived?

So Cyrus' mom admitted her drug dependancy up until his death? So I guess that video of her running up those stairs to her apartment meant she was either getting off or was still under the influence of Ice?

What kind of appointments was she running when Cyrus died in the hands of another?

When my youngest son Jesse was almost two, I would take him everywhere I went and that included shopping on my days off at Home Depot, to going to the dentist and having Jesse sit in my lap while getting my teeth ground.

Jesse was an extension of my left arm and everybody from Safeway to American Savings Bank, to Home Depot soon got to know Jesse and as he grew up he got to know many aunties and uncles.

He went everywhere I went and if I couldn't go somewhere because of the hazzards for a toddler, I simply didn't go.

And I'm a guy! A mother's natural instincts is to typically protect her children by being there for them. Jesse was never out of my sights...NEVER...even in the bathroom at a public restroom, he's in the stall with me.

This mother was so far out of touch with her son...she was basically the last to know her son had died HOURS earlier.

Her son had died before lunchtime, she didn't get back to the apartment until evening! She had appointments...not a job. Her cell phone died, there's phones everywhere. Her car overheated...even if she had to take the bus, she could have made it home much sooner than done.

She couldn't make it home quick enough to even sense any danger while many of us here called our loved ones to check on our own, but she could muster enough courage to walk into a tv studio for an impromptu interview the next day to defend herself.

I'm sorry her son died. I'm sorry for her loss...but I'm not feeling any pain in the way she handled her life, the way she raised Cyrus, or her actions following the death of her son.

Matthew Higa did kill Cyrus Belt, however somehow Higa's remarks in the TV reporter's mic, "Thank you very much!!!" sounded almost sarcastic as if telling the mom to thank him for taking Cyrus' out of that horrific circle of life he had to endure.

In his insane view of life, somehow I feel deep inside, that Matthew Higa really did feel sorry for Cyrus and in his demented mind, took Cyrus out of the mother's hands and into the care of our heavenly father.

Remember Matthew Higa suffered before the drug addiction with the death of his friend because of his involvement in racing. Then he got into drugs and had to deal with an unsympathetic father.

That alone is enough to make one insane, however not enough to see what a dysfunctional environment/family can do to one's self-esteem to the point of drug addiction and mental degradation.

To me, Matthew Higa only expedited Cyrus' demise. The seed of failure was planted in his upbringing and Matthew saw a life of turmoil in Cyrus' future and took it upon himself to stop this insanity by killing it (Cyrus) before it became another Matthew Higa.

So who really killed Cyrus? We can point the finger at many...however I feel the impetus of his demise lies in the way he was left by virtue of the way he was raised...I'm sorry to say, but I think the person responsible for his death was the ONLY person deemed to be his custodial parent...yes...his mom.

And for that I feel sorry for her...to know her irresponsible parenting was the demise of her youngest child. If it were me, I wouldn't be able to live a day longer knowing my selfishness lead to the death of one of the few things I cherish the most, my family.

I hope this final act of selfishness will change her life of drug addiction and make her an advocate of drug rehabilitation so others can learn from her experience.

She owes that much to Cyrus so his death will not be in vain.

[Adri]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

From a purely economic approach, the logical point to tackle the problem is on the supply side. The state could offer $100 to any man or woman under 30 who volunteers to be sterilized. No need to verify applicants are meth heads as addicts who are compelled to commit property crimes to support their habits would naturally be drawn in. A cost-benefit analysis would show that the state recoups the cost of the program many times over in savings on spending on social services and criminal justice. . . .

I vaguely recall reading a couple few years ago about a woman on the mainland (not the government, not an organization, just a woman) who offered $500 to each drug abusing woman of child-bearing age if the woman would get implanted with long-term birth control (I think 5 year minimum and I think the woman offering the $500 was paying for the birth control, too). Not permanent sterilization and completely voluntary. The woman who offered the $500 had no way to force other women to accept her offer and did not attempt to force anyone to accept her offer. There were some women to did indeed accept her offer and then there was a hailstorm of criticism over how the woman offering the $500 was violating the civil rights of the women accepting her offer because those women were generally so desperate for money that, it was posited, they had no true choice in the matter and that it was unethical for the offering woman to even make such an offer to desperate and impaired (due to their drug use) women. Not much discussion about how if the women were so impaired that they couldn't decide whether to take $500 for being on 5 years of birth control that they were probably too impaired to take care of children. So, somehow the woman offering the money turned out to be the bad person and she stopped offering.

[Pua'i Mana'o]

why is Chanco's fitness as a mother or CPS' bureaucratic fugguptitude even coming into play? If we are gonna couldawouldashoulda, how about demanding to know why Higa's mother didn't abort him or his own father commit him way back when™? Then they would have spared us all another perp on the planet.

Druggie tho the mother is, she didn't toss the baby off the freeway. Loser as the father is, he didn't toss the baby off the freeway. Lame as the state, er social worker is, he didn't toss the baby off the freeway. Nor did the stupidass druggie stepfather or the sleeptard-maybe-druggie of a grampa. Higa did, baskethead-potential-druggie that he may well be, and now prolly headed for that great facility in the Windward Sky in Kaneʻohe, where life fer sher ain't gonna be no bag of roses, cause ya know he's gonna be bait for the other paroskeezercrezez that live there.

But let's at least address the 900 lb. gorilla in the room: Chanco has no business having kids. Yeah, I said it. I'm not blaming her for Cyrus' death. I'm just saying a woman who's already had two children taken away from her because she can't properly care for them, a woman who smokes ice while pregnant, a woman who was admittedly still smoking ice last week ... is not a woman who should be having kids. And it's just sad that she has more of an incentive to smoke ice and keep having kids than to stay clean and concentrate on making herself a productive member of society.

oO(supply side??)

Now waitaminit, if Cyrus was never born, then the world would have one less victim? Its Chanco's fault that the baby was born, because if we didn't have a victim, we would have no crime? The solution is to rip Mary's ovaries out, hence removing future victims?

Higa might have signd up for sterilization, but that wouldn't have averted this tragedy. The perp didn't have kids anyway. The perp threw somebody else's kid onto the freeway.

While in no way do I defend Chanco fitness as a parent, I am sure that she is screaming in her sleep about taking her son with her that day and leaving him with anyone else than the stepdaddy and the grampa, who obviously didn't have a clue about the how dangerous the neighbor was to the baby.

I am 100% in agreement in the desire that all children be so fortunate to grow up with Worthy parents, but the fact is if only the Worthy were allowed to have kids, folks like me wouldn't be here.

[cherla42]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

From the experience with Shari I can tell you that when told she would probably not live there is no other pain on this earth that I could compare it to. I understand only a glimps of the pain this family must be feeling over the death of Cyrus. I do completely understand how they feel toward the man who tossed a completely defenceless and loved member of their family to his death. I understand the "what if's" that haunt their minds constantly at this point. And it is completely correct that we grieve differently. I will admit that one of the pics showing Cyrus' mom with a smile on her face at first set me back but then I remembered staring and rocking a nearly lifeless Shari in PICU and smiling thinking of a fond memory of her. Shari lives with medical risks that could kill her in a heart beat. I can say if Shari were to die I would want to curl up in a ball and die myself. Cyrus' mother is at a much higher risk of doing this because of her addictions. It would be so sad to see another life lost in this horrible tragedy.

The big question seems to be "WHY". I will be face to face with the man who beat Shari in March at his first parole hearing. I will be able to say whatever I want and ask what I want. You would think the first question out of my mouth would be "WHY". There is no answer to that question that would change or make what he did to Shari acceptable. Understanding that has brought peace in my heart. Another part of healing for myself was going back to the "what if's" and finding the one's that could make a positive change to help prevent this from happening to even one child. Shari was in a homeless shelter when she was abused for the last time. Since then the shelters on Maui have changed their policies as to who is allowed in the shelters. KUDO's to Maui shelters!!!!! In recognizing a problem and making change they have contributed to our healing process and are protecting the community as well.