Authorities Too Hard On Mother Letter Of The Week: From Aug. 7

Re: “Clash of cultures landed mom in jail,” News, July 31.

I know there is a lot of child mistreatment going on all over. Child abuse is terrible, and the people who do this should be arrested and have to pay for their crime. And there are a lot of poor little ones who aren’t alive today.

But my heart went out to Olena Bezzubenkova, only here for a month from Ukraine, who left her 15-month-old son in the car at Deaconess Medical Center while trying to find an interpreter. She can’t speak English, so I would think her 15-month-old son can’t either.

Like it said in the newspaper, they are from a different culture, which leads me to believe their children are safer over there than ours are here.

She had to be very scared when arrested and held in jail for 30 hours. Her little one also had to be very scared when taken away.

She and her sister kept going and checking on the little one, they said. We all know that you never leave a child alone in a car. But why, after talking to her for an hour at the hospital with an interpreter, couldn’t they have given her a ticket and let her go home with her little boy instead of putting them through the ordeal? Why was she in jail for 30 hours?

I wonder what they think of their new home now?

They need time to learn our laws. I don’t believe she should have to pay for child mistreatment. I think she learned her lesson the hard way already. Sally B. Hazlett Spokane

xxxx