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Topic: Woman arrested for assaulting noisy 2-year old during Star Wars screening
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-04-2018 03:38 PM
quote: Daily Mail
Moviegoer, 25, is charged after 'dumping her popcorn on a 'noisy' two-year-old girl's head in a movie theater and then hitting her with the box' during Star Wars: The Last Jedi
A woman dumped her popcorn on a two-year-old at the movies and started hitting the tot after the child asked her mother for a treat, police say.
Keri Karman, 25, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child after she attacked a two-year-old she did not know in Long Island, New York, while watching the PG-13 blockbuster Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
She was at the AMC Dine-In in Levittown with her father, Charles Karman, 61, when a little girl next to her asked her mother for some popcorn.
'All she said was 'popcorn.' She didn't even say a full sentence,' Celia Riggs, the mom of two-year-old Harley told the New York Post because the child asked for food during the screening.
Keri allegedly dumped her $8.99 popcorn on the child's head and started hitting her with it after she told the tot to be quiet.
'I just wanted to get my daughter out to safety,' Riggs said. 'I ran out with her. She was crying a lot.'
The incident occurred on January 2, but the pair was finally charged Friday with endangering the welfare of the child.
Riggs took to Facebook on January 3 and shared a photo of her daughter saying: 'Please share!! Looking for anyone who was at Levittown Loews at the 4 pm showing of Star Wars on January 2nd. My 2 year old daughter was assaulted while sitting at my side during a movie. There is an investigation police are involved but the person who did it got away. If you have any info please contact me ASAP! Let’s get justice for Harley and use social media to find this lunatic #justiceforHarley.'
Charles Karman was charged as well because he failed to stop the incident when it happened.
Keri allegedly started cussing at the 28-year-old mother of the child after she snapped and told her to be quiet.
The 25-year-old then clamped her hand around the child's mouth, dumped her popcorn on top of the girl, and proceeded to hit her across the head with the bin.
The pair fled the movie theater once the child started crying.
Nassau County police were alerted of the incident after the two-year-old went to the doctors that same day complaining of head pain.
The police searched surveillance footage and movie theater receipts to identify the pair involved in the incident.
They arrested the Karmans, who live in Baldwin, on Friday at 3.30pm. It is unclear what sentence they might face from the incident.
Given that the incident took place in total darkness, I'd be very surprised if this case goes anywhere. Ms. Karman will (if she has any sense and whether she actually did so or not) deny hitting the toddler, there are probably no independent witnesses, and no DA with any sense would prosecute simply for pouring popcorn over her (which, even on a two-year old, will not cause any injury).
I agree with many of the commenters at the bottom of the story, though. You would have to be a total and utter moron to take your two-year old into a movie of that length, intended for adults, and not expect a boredom-induced meltdown to result. My son turned two last month, and it will probably be at least another 2-3 years before he'll have the attention span to get anything from an 80-minute kids' cartoon feature, let alone a 2.5 hour, adult film.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-04-2018 04:25 PM
My local Harkins has provided an innovative solution to this, in the form of a creche (staffed by state-licensed daycare childminders) in the lobby. There is a charge to use it, but it's a lot less than hiring a babysitter. Given how much actual daycare costs ($300 a week in our case), I suspect that it's heavily subsidized. In California, you have to have done quite a bit of training and certification to be licensed to look after pre-school age children professionally.
This is a particularly clever approach, because it insures the theater against accusations of not being family friendly, etc., but also enables them to decline to do what causes a lot of these problems, which is to admit babies in arms to the actual screenings for free.
Children that young simply can't pay attention to any one activity for long enough to gain any pleasure or benefit from trying to watch a feature film, even if it is on a big screen. My cats have a longer attention span than my son. That will change as he grows up, and I'm looking forward to taking him to the theater, probably when he gets to around 6 or 7 (which was when I was taken for the first time). But at two? It takes a really selfish parent to think that's a good idea.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-05-2018 11:55 PM
I believe that there are ordinances in some cities (or counties, applying to theaters in unincorporated areas) that have the effect of giving the ratings system legal teeth. That having been said, there appears to be unofficial but widely practiced belief that for children who are too young to understand the content of the movie and who have been brought in because their parent(s) have nowhere else to take them, not specifically to see the film, the ratings system doesn't apply.
I was also a little surprised that someone would bring a two-year old in to see Star Wars, too. People are killed and blown up in that movie (though admittedly, without any significant blood or gore), and two years is certainly old enough to be able to understand stress, discomfort and those sorts of negative emotions.
Still, back in the '90s, I once saw a mother with a baby who can't have been more than a few months old, go with friends into a screening of Pulp Fiction. I joked with a co-worker that it wouldn't be long before Toys 'R Us started to sell little plastic figures of Bruce Willis in his blood-soaked T-shirt, The Gimp, etc. etc.
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