MN - Mom not at home during fatal Northside fire October 2015

Always Amazed

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This happened on October 3. Now conflicting reports and an investigation into whether or not Mom was home.

"A preliminary investigation into the north Minneapolis house fire that killed three young children in early October has found that their mother was not home at the time of the blaze."

"Chuck Laszewski, a spokesman for the county attorney’s office, declined to comment Monday on the possibility of criminal charges against Stewart because the police are still investigating the incident."


http://www.startribune.com/authorities-mother-not-at-home-during-fatal-north-side-fire/332069702/
 
This is one of the most heartbreaking stories. At first just the fact that a mother lost destroyed her beloved children. And then the news she had not been home. How? Why? WTH??
 
Poverty sucks on so many levels. When does heat have to be turned on? Nov 15 or ?or did she owe money to the utility and could not have heat?

Not excusing the not at home. Just knowing there will be more fires like this.
 
Poverty sucks on so many levels. When does heat have to be turned on? Nov 15 or ?or did she owe money to the utility and could not have heat?

Not excusing the not at home. Just knowing there will be more fires like this.
When I was a young mother, taking care of my infant son, I lived in an apartment building which had a central furnace in the basement with individual controls in the apartments. They would turn off the main furnace from May until September. Well that June we had a nice summer blizzard, leaving me and my baby with special needs in an unheated home. I bundled baby up with socks on his freezing little fists and started making calls. The landlord was very unconcerned and dismissed me with a "we're working on it." At that point I'd had to turn the oven on and open the door and the phone in front of the oven and sat there crying. We had had an open dhs case due to my son's father shaking my son so I finally decided to call the social worker who had been working with us. The heat was back on in less than a half hour!

Not the same thing but it reminded me.

I'm very curious to hear more about this case.

Sent from my LG-D321 using Tapatalk
 
I want to be clear that I posted this story not to vilify the Mom but more because it disturbs me that in a city constantly touted as "progressive" and one of the best places to live, Minneapolis continues to fail miserably at caring for the poorest of its residents.

This article explains more about Minneapolis' "cold weather rule", etc.
http://www.startribune.com/family-ids-3-children-killed-in-north-minneapolis-fire/330710441/

Seems there were SO many failures leading to the death of these three precious souls.
 
Poverty sucks on so many levels. When does heat have to be turned on? Nov 15 or ?or did she owe money to the utility and could not have heat?

Not excusing the not at home. Just knowing there will be more fires like this.


In MN the date is 10/1. The LL for this place DID have someone coming to fix it on saturday afternoon, but they cancelled and were going to come the next day on sunday, but the fire happened on saturday night. However, it wasn't all that cold. Houses heat up during the day, and my thermostat that is set at 67 didn't trigger the furnace to come on. THere are other ways to stay warm on nights like those by putting on a sweat shirt or using another blanket. (I don't live in a city so if my propane runs out there is no law saying it needs to stay on (like if someone in a city isn't paying their utility bill it might be shut of) )

a few things out on SM is that this 'mother' buried another child last year (couldn't find solid info) and (one of) the north minneapolis community FB page found that she wasn't at the bar, she was 'working' per a backpage ad someone found. That I really wish I hadn't clicked on. Some things can't be unseen, and that's one of them.

I pretty much called BS on her 'i was there!' crap right at the start. she wasn't even treated for smoke inhalation.
 
Poverty sucks on so many levels. When does heat have to be turned on? Nov 15 or ?or did she owe money to the utility and could not have heat?

Not excusing the not at home. Just knowing there will be more fires like this.

You can buy a small electrical heater which are not very expensive instead of using an oven.
 
You can buy a small electrical heater which are not very expensive instead of using an oven.

Buy.
If you have $0.00 and "inexpensive" space heaters cost $9.99 paid up front, and turning your oven on costs $0.00 up front, the math kinda works itself out. POVERTY being the key word. When you have no money, nothing is inexpensive.

Clearly you've never had to distract yourself with songs in your head to avoid assaulting your co-worker for the ham sandwich they're eating at the desk next to you, or any other strategy folks living in poverty are all too familiar with.

NOT that this mom made a good choice. It's never okay to leave your children alone.

But it's not always as easy as picking up a little space heater over at Target. Not to mention how you even GET to Target and back.
 
Buy.
If you have $0.00 and "inexpensive" space heaters cost $9.99 paid up front, and turning your oven on costs $0.00 up front, the math kinda works itself out. POVERTY being the key word. When you have no money, nothing is inexpensive.

Clearly you've never had to distract yourself with songs in your head to avoid assaulting your co-worker for the ham sandwich they're eating at the desk next to you, or any other strategy folks living in poverty are all too familiar with.

NOT that this mom made a good choice. It's never okay to leave your children alone.

But it's not always as easy as picking up a little space heater over at Target. Not to mention how you even GET to Target and back.

Then I guess you can turn on your oven and potentially cause fire and die.
 
Poverty sucks on so many levels. When does heat have to be turned on? Nov 15 or ?or did she owe money to the utility and could not have heat?

Not excusing the not at home. Just knowing there will be more fires like this.

You can buy a small electrical heater which are not very expensive instead of using an oven.

Buy.
If you have $0.00 and "inexpensive" space heaters cost $9.99 paid up front, and turning your oven on costs $0.00 up front, the math kinda works itself out. POVERTY being the key word. When you have no money, nothing is inexpensive.

Clearly you've never had to distract yourself with songs in your head to avoid assaulting your co-worker for the ham sandwich they're eating at the desk next to you, or any other strategy folks living in poverty are all too familiar with.

NOT that this mom made a good choice. It's never okay to leave your children alone.

But it's not always as easy as picking up a little space heater over at Target. Not to mention how you even GET to Target and back.

Then I guess you can turn on your oven and potentially cause fire and die.

Totally the point. SMH

No one said that the oven was a good option. What's your suggestion? Shoplifting? Not being poor in the first place? I'd add more clothes, etc., but you can't buy a space heater with lint and crumpled Kleenex.
 
Well but apparently she had money enough to go out drinking.
 
Oh, she's an alcoholic? Well, then screw her AND her kids.
 
I think the question is, how much does alcohol cost (which police investigator claims was smelled on her)?
You just argued that $9.99 electric heater is something impossible to afford.
 
Oh, she's an alcoholic? Well, then screw her AND her kids.



I have no idea if she's an alcoholic or not but the theory was that she had $0.00 on her and that's why she couldn't make safe choices for her children. So I think the cost of the alcohol that was smelled on her breath might be relevant.

We have no idea how much money she had.
 
Leaving the open oven is very dangerous even if it didn't cause fire. Small child can be injured if he gets close to the oven. Leaving small children home alone (which is what police think she did) is dangerous even if the oven wasn't left on. If the furnace wasn't working landlord should have provided the heater free of charge.

"When alternative forms of heating are needed, they must be used safely. Officials emphasize that stoves should never be used to heat homes. Leaving an oven door open to provide heat increases the risk of igniting a fire or, in the case of gas stoves, releasing carbon monoxide."

http://www.startribune.com/followin...ved-lives-lost-in-minneapolis-fire/331474861/
 
I've found that she possibly had a 3 month old die from a broken neck back in July. Cannot find a news story about it, though I do vaguely remember something like that being reported over the summer.

I will say also that Minneapolis has quite a few slumlords, but the guy who owned this rental was not one of them.

I have heard that the kids were screaming for their mother, but I have not heard where (probably won't ever be released) where they were found inside the home.
 
I am so not ok with her leaving the kids.

This is not the first or last fire that will happen this year in MN . I would not worry about an oven for a heat source. I do not know why as an oven is an appliance in use all of the time.

Space heaters are always causing fires in MN. Those for sure are dangerous.

Hooefully she won't have more kids.

If she was out, it is possible someone bought her drinks.

Poverty causes so many issues.

Having to sell yourself is an ugly choice. I do not think it is the oldest profession. I think it is one of the oldest forms of abuse however.
 
It's very dangerous to use oven as a heat source. As to why not, I would think it's obvious. When you use it to cook something, you don't leave the door open. Oven is not designed to be left on with the door open. If you heat the oven and leave it open (which is how people use it as a heat source), then whatever is close to the oven can get ignited (which is presumably why the house caught on fire).

"All of the fire officials stressed the danger of using an oven or a stove as a heating source."

http://www.bradfordera.com/news/article_a6b55e84-6e25-11e5-9722-6f2209c72c9a.html
 

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