I argued yesterday in the comments to the Dreamin’ Demon post on the Aguiar murder that at least the people tried to help the baby, assuming the witnesses had actually tried.
I was wrong, according to this S.F. Gate article the witnesses did nothing to stop this monster from murdering the child.
Let’s start with the first “man” on the scene, a heroic volunteer firefighter. When he and his old lady saw Sergio killing the baby he swung into action:
McKain, of Crows Landing, said she drove past Sergio Aguiar’s pickup Saturday night on West Bradbury Road and, at first, thought he was “kicking garbage or something.”
But she said her boyfriend, Dan Robinson, told her to back up and put her headlights on Aguiar.
“Sure enough, he was kicking a baby around,” McKain said.
She said the child was unconscious, his clothes falling off, and looked liked a “rag doll.” Robinson, a volunteer fire chief in Crows Landing, showed Aguiar his badge and ordered him to stop, but Aguiar calmly said something like, “It’s just trash,” McKain said.
Aguiar also said, “Look how they make toys now,” McKain said, and at one point asked Robinson for a knife.
When Robinson went into the pickup to turn on the hazard lights, Aguiar stopped kicking the boy, helped him find the flashers, then went back to his attack, McKain said. She said there was blood in the truck’s cab.
What?!?! Shouldn’t Robinson have tried to, I don’t know, physically intervene? He was killing a baby right in front of his eyes! Killing a baby!
What sort of man, of any age, can sit by and watch that? Robinson is worse than a coward.
But wait, it gets worse. You see, it’s not like Robinson was alone. There was a whole crowd of people standing around:
McKain said her son, her son’s wife and her son’s friend were also there, as were a woman and a man who pulled up in separate cars. She estimated that she saw Aguiar kick or stomp his son at least 100 times, but she said no one tried to stop him because he appeared to be dangerous. One fear was that “maybe he had something in his pocket,” she said.
Oh. In other words, cowardice. There were more than enough people there to subdue Aguiar but they would rather have a baby beaten to death than risk injury to themselves. How disgusting is that?
Then the degenerates have the unmitigated gall to make themselves out as victims! For example there’s Lisa Mota, who is a typical example of the self-absorbed attention vampire who uses the tragedy of others to demand the massive amount of pity she needs from others to fill the void in her being where a soul should be:
Another witness, 23-year-old Lisa Mota, said Aguiar “wasn’t acting like a crazy person, running around or screaming. He said, ‘I’ve just got to get the demons out of him.’ He was very calm.’ ”
Mota said she went to a counselor Monday to talk about what she saw but wasn’t ready to talk about it publicly.
“Even having witnessed it, I still can’t believe it happened,” she said. “I don’t think it’s ever going to leave my mind. For someone like me who is about to start a family, it’s a fear that there’s people out there like that – that even have the thought to kill a child.”
What should disturb a young mother more is the idea that there are people out there without the will or moral certitude to protect a child. There were at least three men there, and since women are able to do anything men can do we have a group of people who could have easily overwhelmed Aguiar, but didn’t because they, in their own way, are just as evil.
Evil isn’t just abhorrent acts, it is the absence of doing good. Evil is the loss of knowledge of what is right, honor, integrity, self-sacrifice. When we as a society lose these ideals we allow evil to replace them. It is evil to watch a baby be murdered; it was evil when the Aztecs watched their priests do it on the blood soaked steps of the Temple of the Sun and it was evil on a dark California road when a crowd gathered to witness another child sacrifice.
It is equally evil for those who should be shamed by those actions to go on with their lives as if they were victims, it dishonors the memory of that poor child and elevates the craven impulse of the coward until it seems acceptable. These people who watched should be publicly shamed, and perhaps made to tend the grave of the child they did nothing to save.
Update: Julian points out in the comments that other reports claim two of the men wrestled the man but could not stop him, making those witnesses unmanly at best, but brave and deserving of our respect. My opinion of Mota and the people who watched and didn’t help has not changed.
Update: People you’ll See in Hell has a good post on Aguiar, thanks Dylan’s Mommy!
Update: Michelle Malkin isn’t happy about this story. She reminds us that incidents like this are the end result of us abandoning the ideal of a culture of self-defense.
Thank you for posting this.
I was hesitant to come back to this site – because it is so painful. But I read every comment, twice, and cried again, hugged and kissed my own two-year-old (and felt blessed to be able to do so), and have to agree with you Rob; those witnesses were placed there on that road that night to save that child’s life.
They failed miserably and no amount of protest by their foul-mouthed extended families or vile co-workers will ever change their place in history. It is certainly between them and God.
To me, you are a coward if you do not stop a man from beating a child, REGARDLESS of the child’s time of death. There is no justification, no fact-finding required, no gray area, no ‘you weren’t there’, no shock theories and no EXCUSES. None…you either help prevent the murder or post-murder abuse, or you participate. And those witnesses need to be held accountable. This can’t be tolerated, rationalized away. Human morality has turned to dust – we have to demand more.
No heroes are required here – it is our human obligation to protect our children at any and all costs. I will most definitely be more mindful of spotting abuse in children, and acting on it. So many of these children have been abused before, and the signs are there.
I just now read that they found no drugs or alcohol in the father’s system. Horrifying. No answers. What happened? As Jennifer A put it so brilliantly, “…because it would seem such a senseless and unfair act of God.†Or the devil.
Jodie- you’re my hero too. Thank GOD we have firefighters like you. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.
I wish there was one beautiful picture of Baby Axel somewhere, so I could replace that image with the one I’m carrying around now. I want to remember him the way he was, before…God Bless you sweet Baby Axel, I’m still praying for you baby boy and I love you and wish…I just wish so much for you. And to Baby Axel’s mother, I also pray for you, and do apologize for my remarks. My heart breaks for you.
Thank you for posting this. This situation should be a lesson to us all that we must be prepared everyday to confront evil.
Gosh Char it sounds to me like you are just a poser looking for a little action. Even a person who is relating a story they heard from someone else, brother, brother in law, whatever; would probably not hold so divinely to the “I KNOW EVERYTHING THAT WENT ON, I KNOW THE TRUTH ” theory especially when you weren’t there. You contradict the story told by the actual weak, pathetic worms who watched this child beat to death. You say the news is not accurate, nor are the accounts of the witnesses that did not help, you even claim to know that the perp wanted to die by cop. Your brother in law arrived after the witnesses. Yet you seem to know without a doubt what they did or did not do prior to your BIL arriving. Yep it looks like a poser looking for attention to me. Listen I hear that some guy was starting fires in the local mountains around the zoo. Eight in all I think. Why don’t you go find that story. It is less heart wrenching and people like you have no right to ever insert yourself into this beautiful childs sad story. Or better yet, get away from the tv and actually try a little bit of real life yourself. Maybe you will be lucky enough to have some creep rape and sodomize you on a public street while a few hundred of your poor, pathetic tortured neighbors look on in horror. Then you can “KNOW THE TRUTH” and have something real to say to all those “stupid people” that dare to speak the truth about the maggots who just stood and watched. Yeah I’d actually like to be there, because after I break his neck and stomp him to death you can tell me what a jerk I am for thinking all the other people standing around watching the show are asswipes.
In response to the degenerate Californian’ comment, let me say this…I was born and raised here in crappy California and I’m not proud to say that. Californians have a reputation for being self-absorbed and dumbasses, and now we’re labeled cowards. I live a couple minutes from where it happened and I was actually at the hospital in the emergency room across the room from where they brought in the baby. I saw what his father did to him. I cried for weeks. Even a year later, I still remember that day like it was yesterday. I tell you what, if I saw what that m*****f***** was doing on the side of that road, I would have had no hesitation to protect the life of any living being, I think I could’ve found some sort of blunt object to crack the maniac’s head with then I would’ve grabbed the baby and took off with him. Unlike the other Californians, I wouldn’t have thought about my own personal safety for a millisecond or anything else for that matter if it came down to helping someone or saving a life. Would that have made me a hero? No. But it would’ve made me a decent person that doesn’t give a shit what’s in someone’s pocket or if I’d get arrested for killing this guy. If that baby would’ve lived, that’s all that matters. This is the reason we have guns in our home…too bad we don’t carry them because even though I’m personally terrified to shoot someone, I wouldn’t have hesitated that night. Just remember, there are decent people out there and it’s idiots like these bystanders that give Californians a bad name. What a damn shame. I hope that poor baby and his family are finally at peace now.
Jennifer A: My husband’s co-workers knew the father and mother. He was clean, no drugs, no alcohol, good guy with no mental problems. His tox was clean. Unfortunately there are a lot of mental illnesses that make people just snap with no previous signs or symptoms. I honestly believe that’s what happened. I do know his estranged wife went to San Diego on Father’s Day weekend to meet a man she met on the internet and he found out. I also believe the baby was already or almost gone before the father stopped the truck. Even so, I would have done everything in my power to get that baby away from the psycho dad, even if I knew for a fact he was already dead. That baby deserved more than his life ending brutally on a concrete road. I agree with everything you said 100%. At the time, I lived a couple minutes from where it happened but I was in the emergency room actually in the room across from where they brought the poor baby. I saw what he looked like for a brief second before they closed that curtain. It will haunt me and it makes me ashamed to be categorized with the cowards that stood by that night. I would put my life on the line to save a human being, even if I am horrified at what I see and even if I’m in complete shock. I want to carry one of my husband’s guns in my car just for this reason.
Rob Taylor: I agree with everything you’ve said. It’s amazing that people have so much fear in them that it would restrain them from intervening in a situation like that.
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WOW.. I can’t believe after two years I am reading this. I came to remember this story because I can never forget that night of June 14th in the ER at Emanuel. I am a nurse there and I can clarify for both Jodie and Char. The baby was not pronounced dead at the scene. The baby was not pronounced dead on arrival (meaning on his way or in the ambulance) the baby was indeed pronounced dead inside the hospital room.
My dear Char M. THAT means he was still considered to be in critical but living state the whole time you saw the kicking, stomping, and beating and the whole time this child was being transported to the ER.
I really regret your comment below where you call others ignorant for assuming you were there. When you are the one claiming and “exclaiming” that “YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED”.. yet you admit you weren’t there. So how do you know what REALLY happened if you weren’t? now that sounds more like ignorance and assumption.
Whomever your link or source of information is regarding “what REALLY happened” obviously has mislead you with a few bits of IMPORTANT information about “WHAT REALLY HAPPENED”
I have yet to form an opinion about the by-standers that night, because I wasn’t there either and I’ve tried not to be bias.. but even after these two years have gone by I can’t make sense of why no one acted on behalf of this baby boy Sergio Axel.
I’ve heard directly from witnesses saying, “the baby didn’t stand a chance” or “he was already gone”
Even if that would would have been the case.. is this a good enough reason to just let this crazy individual continue stomping and beating the poor bloodied child? was this enough of a reason to just sit and watch it happen? at least look away.. i know at least one couple called 911 that day but never heard of any more calls beyond those two calls. People can just make themselves feel better by making themselves think “oh he was dead already” who checked his vital signs to find out for sure?
I think I have enough evidence and reason to think poorly of each and every single by-stander that stood and watched.
>Char M. said,
>on July 15th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
>This for Jodie, You are so wrong . I WAS NOT THERE. I don’t get how >you stupid people think. To assume I was there because I know what >REALLY happened shows how ignorant you are. And also for your >imformation, the baby DID NOT die on the way to the hospital. The >baby was dead at the scene. I know this because my brother-in-law >was the first Firefighter on scene and tried to bring the baby back, but >he was gone before they arrived. So, don’t talk shit about something >when you have no clue. You all assume and know nothing. To bad for >all of you.
Like everyone else who heard about this on the news, I was horrified, saddened and disgusted… I’ve wondered why no more information ever surfaced beyond the initial (national) reports of a man killing a toddler on the side of the road. A miniscule amount of info surfaces from your local California press, which only revealed drugs/alcohol didn’t play a part in this. And that the mother had no comment. How sad. Nobody that knew the baby has any comment to make? I totally get that it’s no doubt the worst personal tragedy possible for the mom but it doesnt strike me as a tragedy that ONLY affects the mom. I mean the sweet little baby was savaged in public view for goodness sakes, and nobody else is interested who this little boy was? We don’t have a clear picture of what was leading up to this, the hours before, when the father picked up the child, the last time his mother saw him …anything? Kind of like that pickup truck simply materialized on the side of the road and the murder followed? ? ? ? Or it’s a tragedy for the mom so don’t ask her anything she doesnt feel like commenting. WHAT?? Don’t we value that little boy’s life enough to find out EXACTLY what went on? EXACTLY who was present while he was being murdered, and where they were (in their cars?, standing outside, 10 ft 20 ft away???? This drives me nuts because after reading the limited available news/stories/clips it SOUNDS as though their was quite an AUDIENCE. How many people were there? The “father” was doing all this to the child and he wasnt distracted enough that somebody couldnt have run up behind him (out of the darkness and tackled him) and at least kicked him and stepped back if he turned around, all the while headlights shone on him? Of course we werent there to know what went down in what order, but if these people tried to intervene shouldnt they at least set the record straight and say, yea we tried to fight this creep off or whatever? Again it SOUNDS as though we have people standing far back, some safely watching in their vehicles DOING NOTHING and we have one guy showing his “firefighter badge” until mercifully the cop lands in the copter and shoots the “father” and stops this attack. If that IS NOT what happened why arent the named witnesses coming forward to say any different? I have a 2 year old nephew and I keep thinking how small, defenseless, SCARED, sweet and fragile that Axel must have been.
mira FRANCES no te hagas la inosente no te queda no supiste valorar lo que tuviste pobre niño falto de una madre de verdad tu te aprovechaste de tu esposo su familia no esta aqui en usa pero tu sabes la pendejada que hiciste tu nunca debiste ser madre si tienes consiencia que mal la estas pasando y sino pues disfruta porque todos vamos para haya
i would have done everything possible to help that baby. i would have given my life if i had to give the baby over. i know this is old posting, but first time i heard of it.