Op-Ed: Leaving Little Leiby a Better Legacy

The New York Daily News reports today that a Brooklyn councilman is proposing “Leiby’s Law,” named in honor of 8-year-old local boy Leiby Kletzky, who was murdered after becoming lost on his seven block route home from day camp, and asking the man indicted in the murder, Levi Aron, for directions.

In this law, local businesses could volunteer to be designated as safe havens for children who are lost or otherwise in trouble. Says the News: “Employees would undergo background checks and business owners would put a green sticker in their store windows so children know it’s a safe place to get help.”

It seems every time a child is murdered a law pops up in his or her place: Amber Alert, Megan’s Law, Kendra’s Law, and a host of others. Caylee’s Law, which would require a parent or caregiver to report a child under six missing for more than one hour or face felony charges, is gathering support. While this seems like a common sense law, some feel it’s a bad idea.

In a piece in the Huffington Post, writer Radley Balko argues that there could be many reasons someone doesn’t report a child missing for more than an hour. Like maybe the parent is so panicked he or she is looking for the child? Maybe the child died accidentally and the parent passed out from shock? You get the idea. But that’s another blog.

Are these laws effective or merely ways for the community to feel proactive in the face of a terrible tragedy? In the case of the proposed Leiby’s Law, I feel it’s the latter.

Firstly, Aron would have probably passed a background check, since he had never been in trouble with the law in New York. He did have a 2006 protective order issued against him by an ex-wife in Tennessee. But the ex, Debbie Kivel, pulled the order a few weeks after it was issued. (She is also the one telling the media that Aron was a great guy who was always nice to her kids.) It’s doubtful it would have shown up in a background check.

Additionally, how many stores would actually participate in this law? In New York City, especially, it’s not uncommon for stores to employ immigrants of dubious documentation status; I doubt many are going to want the police nosing around in their employees’ business. This law also opens up the possibility of lawsuits against store owners whose employees either passed background checks—and still turned out to be trouble—or whose background checks didn’t turn up anything of consequence.

And would people who had small infractions in their pasts—an unpaid parking ticket, say—be worried about a store participating in this program and not apply for a job out of fear of a background check? The unemployment rate is high enough as it is.

Says Carole Moore, former police detective and the author of The Last Place You’d Look: True Stories of Missing Persons and the People Who Search for Them: “You can’t check every new employee’s background without running into a lot of delays and mistakes.”

She also makes the point that a child walking into a designated store may simply approach the first person he or she sees. “Theoretically,” says Moore, “if a child went into a place with a pedophile who was shopping, the child could still be in harm’s way. Even if the child is told to go to the counter and ask for help: Kids don’t always do what they’re told.”

But, most of all, how effective would this law be at protecting children like Leiby?

Moore says she has seen this kind of approach before. When she was on the police force in Jacksonville, NC (home of two major Marine Corps bases), her community had a program called “Helping Hand.” In it, participating businesses and individuals had background checks and then were given a placard with a hand on it to hang in their business or home windows. The program was in effect for about a decade, says Moore. She notes: “In all of the years that it existed, I never once saw a child use it.” She adds that the program eventually “just sort of faded away.”

While laws that come to being after a tragedy can be effective—Moore notes that Amber Alert and Megan’s Law have had degrees of success—no law can replace drilling into children some basic tenets of self-protection.

Here are some important rules:

Go To A Woman

Police say to tell your children that if they ever find themselves lost or in trouble, to approach the nearest female, especially if she has children with her. Could your child approach someone like Casey Anthony? The odds are much higher. Also, let’s keep in mind, Anthony was never accused of murdering a stranger’s child. Most women aren’t.

Scream “I Don’t Know Him!”

Moore advises instructing your child that, if someone is trying to take him or her, they should yell, “I don’t know him!” Otherwise, a child that is kicking and screaming and being dragged off by an adult could be mistaken for one just having a temper tantrum. (Moore says this works for women being abducted too—otherwise bystanders might assume this is just a domestic altercation and not want to get involved.) Moore also says that a child can yell “Fire!” “Everyone comes running when they hear that word,” she says.

Common Sense Teachings

Of course, you should also tell your kids never to get into anyone’s car or be led into someone’s home, no matter what this person says—even if your child is familiar with this person as a neighbor or community member. And while I generally believe that young children don’t need cell phones, it can be invaluable as a safety tool.

“Parents need to teach their kids common sense stuff,” says Moore. “But you have to instill a wariness in children for any of this to work. I’m not saying we should teach our kids to be afraid or mistrusting of everyone, but as a cop, I knew how much evil there really was out there and, believe me, my kids did, too.”

Sad but true. Let’s leave Little Leiby a better legacy than an ineffective law that could easily fade into non-existence.