From the San Jose Mercury News:
Investigators struggled Tuesday to explain why a 27-year-old man with no criminal record and no apparent signs of mental illness savagely beat his toddler son to death on a dark country road.
Sergio Casian Aguiar, who worked at a supermarket in Turlock, was fatally shot by police Saturday night after he refused to stop attacking his 2-year-old son, according to the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department.
The boy was staying with his father over the weekend because his mother was out of town. Aguiar didn’t tell his roommate where he and his son were going when he left their house Saturday night.
Witnesses said they saw Aguiar stomping, kicking and punching the toddler next to his pickup truck, which was parked on a remote, unlit road in rural Stanislaus County around 10 p.m. Saturday.
Deborah McKain, 51, who lives in nearby Crows Landing, and her boyfriend, Dan Robinson, were driving on West Bradbury Road, just outside the San Joaquin Valley town of Turlock, when they spotted Aguiar on the roadside.
She told the San Francisco Chronicle that at first she thought he was “kicking garbage or something,” but soon realized he was attacking a child. She said the child looked like a “rag doll,” unconscious with his clothes falling off. She estimated that she saw him kick or stomp the boy at least 100 times.
Robinson, a volunteer fire chief in Crows Landing, and at least one other man tried to pull Aguiar away from the boy, but the suspect kept attacking the toddler.
Minutes after at least three 911 calls were placed—at 10:19 p.m.—officers in a sheriff’s helicopter landed in a nearby cow pasture. Modesto Police Officer Jerry Ramar jumped out, ran across a field to an electrified fence next to the road and ordered Aguiar to stop.
“Put your hands up. Step away from the baby,” Ramar said, according to Singh.
When Aguiar stuck out his middle finger and kept kicking the boy, Ramar fired his gun, killing the suspect with a shot in the forehead.
The two-year-old boy who was beaten beyond recognition.
I cannot fathom the depravity nor the brutality of a father taking his 2-year-old son to a deserted road and, over the course of several minutes, beat the life out of him.
I cannot fathom the depravity nor the brutality of a crown of bystanders standing there and watching a father taking his 2-year-old son to a deserted road and, over the course of several minutes, beat the life out of him.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
The town of Turlock and much of the rest of the nation was shocked when a 27-year-old man beat and stomped his 2-year-old son to death on a rural road. But what was nearly as stunning for many people was that none of the motorists and their passengers who stopped and saw the attack tried to tackle the man.
Police officers and psychologists familiar with violent emergencies, however, said they weren’t surprised at all.
A volunteer firefighter and at least five others saw Sergio Casian Aguiar assaulting his son Saturday night on the road west of Turlock (Stanislaus County), but it wasn’t until a police officer arrived in a helicopter that the attack finally ended. Aguiar refused to halt the attack and raised his middle finger at the officer, who shot him to death, authorities said.
This country was founded by rugged individuals - both male and female, farmer and businessman, religious and non-believer. We celebrate the rugged individual’s guts, his sacrifice, his ability to endure, his courage. Most rugged individuals stand for something and are willing to do whatever it takes to make things right in the world. All the responsibility rests on their shoulders. Our history is filled with stories of people who take responsibility into their own hands and act. Whether it’s Paul Revere or the Lone Ranger, Americans are taught from a very early age that we know what’s right and have to do it or it will go undone.
Yet this concept has been weeded out of our collective consciousness. Americans today are taught to be mindless sheep.
During World War I and II this country necessarily turned to the government to solve every difficult problem. The government having absorbed every energy of our people for war, there was no other solution. For the preservation of the state the Federal Government became a centralized despotism which undertook unprecedented responsibilities, assumed autocratic powers, and took over the business of citizens. To a large degree, we regimented our whole people temporally into a socialistic state. However justified in war time, if continued in peace-time it would destroy not only our American system but with it our progress and freedom as well. And today I fear that the damage is already done.
Says Jimmie:
I can’t wrap my head around this story. It is inconceivable to me that five grown adults watched a man stomp a 2 year-old child to death and did nothing more than call 911. Their excuses and rationalizations for why they did next to nothing make no real sense to me. It all sounds like pathetic whining.
One of the witnesses said that folks like me who are critical of her and the four other people who were in the car with her “never know until they’re in that situation”. I will say this. I do not know exactly what I would do in a similar situation, but I do know for damned sure that had I been there I would have tried to stop him using every bit of knowledge and strength I had. I would not have watched the man kick that boy “at least 100 times” over seven minutes. I can say that without a shadow of a doubt.
It is unbelievable to me that another human being could have a doubt about that. I read that lady’s quotes and I have nothing to say to her except, “Yes, Lady, but you watched him kill that boy and you did nothing to stop him.”
Says Rob Taylor:
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.
- Had one of them had a firearm they could have ended the mayhem, but today’s Liberal society wants all law abiding citizens to be disarmed in order to “protect the children”.
- Had one of them cared more about the innocent child that their own safety they could have ended the mayhem, but today’s Liberal society worries more about liability lawsuits.
- Had one of them been a rugged individual they could have ended the mayhem, but today’s Liberal society refuses to teach morals, courage, responsibility, or the difference between right and wrong.
Sergio Casian Aguiar, Turlock, Stanislaus County, rugged individual
