Playland settlement divides readers
Monday, March 23rd, 2009Reader reaction has been swift and vehement to the settlement Westchester County has tentatively reached with the family of a 7-year-old Connecticut boy who was killed on a ride at the county-owned amusement park. The boy, Jon-Kely Cassara, was killed on the Ye Old Mill, an indoor water ride, when he exited the car and was caught under water between two conveyer belts.
On one hand, several comments suggest that the parents are purely to blame for allowing their child to get on the ride, even though they couldn’t supervise him. Others say that the county rightfully is to blame based on a park employee’s testimony that the ride was insufficiently staffed.
Here’s the latest update by reporter Jorge Fitz-Gibbon. Then tell us what you think.
This is another reason why Westchester County should close or sell Playland. Playland’s time has come and long gone.
The family of this boy should be ashamed of themselves for making the county shell out taxpayer dollars for something that is purely the fault of the parents.
How dare you write such an insensitive heartless comment. These poor people live with the horror of their sons’ death everyday. … Did you not read what the park’s former manager said? The fact that the ride was not suffieicently staffed? … God bless that poor little boy and his family. May he rest in peace.
Perhaps had Playland been modernized, it could have had the same type of closed-circuit monitoring that car tunnels do, thereby allowing the ride to be shut down when the child got out of the ride. And that would have happened with both adequate supervision and modernization. Ergo: Playland’s fault.
